Since a few decades, more and more people are moving to the cities. In fact, it is expected that the worlds urban areas will almost double in the next coming decades, increasing with over 2.6 billion people. This urbanization will have a significant impact on the worlds largest cities, which will face some massive challenges related to energy, food, security and water.
Fortunately, all those new citizens in the cities are also generating massive amounts of data that can be used to cope with these new challenges. Todays cities are using that data, as well as massive city data to make cities more efficient and cost-effective. Thanks to new Big Data technologies and a new approach to the available data, many city services and functions will be improved, making life in the worlds largest cities more and more enjoyable.
The possibility to collect and analyze real-time, raw data across a wide variety of city services and operations will definitely change city life. All the new data sources are enabling new innovations, applications and services, changing the way that citizens interact with the city government, built environment, and one another. Analyzing citizens walking patterns for example, can help citizens who have to walk across a city chose the streets with the most pedestrians, to enable a safe trip, also later in the evening, as is shown in this video.
An important pre-requisite for such new application however, is that more and more city departments should start to work together and share their data with one another. This will require a new culture, but the benefits are significant. As Ellis Booker suggest in an article on Data Informed A simple example of cross-agency cooperation at work is street repairs. By sharing schedules about new construction, scheduled utility maintenance, homeowner association block parties and real-time pothole reports, city planners can start doing collaborative planning. The result is that the street isnt ripped by three different city agencies on three separate dates. This kind of efficiency saves money while pleasing residents.
Fortunately, such new examples are happening all over the world and more cities are investing in new applications. A report on smart cities developed by Navigant Research predicts that annual revenue from smart city technology will grow from $ 8.8 billion in 2013 to $27.5 billion by 2023, with total aggregate investment over the next decade reaching a staggering $175 billion. Collaborations between universities and organisations as shown in this video, will definitely help speed-up the investments and Big Data applications for cities around the world, creating a bright city life for many of us.
