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Author: French, Emma × End date: 2024 × Start date: 2010 × search.filters.applied.f.isSeriesOfPublicationTitle: Master of City and Regional Planning ×

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People-Centered Planning for Smart Cities: Exploring the Use of Smart Cities Technologies in Efforts to Engage the Public

2017-05 , French, Emma

City planners will doubtless play a significant role in the design and implementation of smart city projects. In a 2015 report on Smart Cities and Sustainability the American Planning Association (APA) purported that smart city technologies (SCTs) will aid planners by creating more avenues for community participation in policy and planning processes (APA 2015). In reality, it is likely that these smart city technologies (SCTs) will disproportionately benefit communities that already have the resources and skills to engage in planning and policy-making processes. This study challenges the claim that smart cities will enable greater public participation by investigating the use of SCTs in efforts to engage the public in three planning efforts conducted in the Proctor Creek Watershed in West Atlanta. The findings show that use of SCTs is uneven among different stakeholder types and that perceptions about the impact of these technologies on enabling the public to engage in planning processes do not necessarily correspond with use. While use of SCTs was found to be uneven, community residents who participated in planning efforts reported that the use of certain technologies increased their understanding of the issues and their trust in the professional planners. These community participants expressed a strong desire to understand the data and technology being used in the planning process so that they could use those tools to advocate for their own community needs. As investment in smart cities grows, professional planners need to advocate for equitable development and deployment of new services and technologies to ensure that disadvantaged communities are not further disenfranchised by this new wave of automation. City and regional planners need to remain mindful of the context in which, and the audience for whom, they are planning. Further research is needed to better understand the how to plan for and develop smart cities that improve quality of life for everyone.

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2017 Urban Design Studio (Urawa Misono)

2017-05 , Binder, Robert , Garnett, Dontrey , Yang, Wenhui , Zeng, Tianran , French, Emma , Moreno, Marcela , Ray, Ellen , Veriah, Revathi Roopini , Brasgalla, Karina , Koo, Bonwoo , Lancaster, Zachary , Pang, Gabriel Jian , Yang, Perry Pei-Ju

Urawa Misono is a sub-center of Saitama City, the most populous city in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. While Saitama City boasts a population of 1.26 million, Urawa Misono has remained largely rural. Only 45 minutes from Tokyo by rail, it is the final stop on the Saitama Rapid Railway Line. Every two weeks, thousands of soccer fans swarm the station and walk or drive to the Saitama Stadium, constructed in 2002 to host the FIFA World Cup. Saitama Stadium is an important site for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, prompting local and regional officials to consider how they will accommodate the massive influx of event spectators and maximize the impact of this influx for broader development goals. Even without the Olympics, Urawa Misono’s current population is projected to triple in size to over 32,000 by 2030. The challenge of planning in an international context was further compounded by the “smart city” directive. The term “smart city” has become common parlance in urban planning in recent years. While there is no universally agreed upon definition, descriptions of smart cities typically refer to integrated and inter-operable networks of digital infrastructure and information and communication technologies (ICT) that collect and share data and improve the quality of urban life (Allwinkle and Cruickshank 2011; Batty et al. 2012). However, unlike related concepts such as the digital city, the intelligent city and the ubiquitous city, the smart city is not limited to the diffusion of ICT, but also commonly includes people (Albino, Beradi, and Dangelico 2015). Due to the scope and complexity of the project, the Studio came up with the three guiding objectives outlined below through an internal charrette process: Sustainability, Adaptability, and Equity.

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International Urban Design Studio 2017, Urawa-Misono District, Tokyo

2017-04 , Aragon, Abigail , Binder, Robert , Brasgalla, Karina , French, Emma , Garnett, Dontrey , Hicks, Zachary , Koo, Bonwoo , Lancaster, Zachary , Moreno, Marcela , Pang, Gabriel Jian , Ray, Ellen , Rencurrell, Sean , Samartzis, Patricia , Steidl, Paul , Veriah, Revathi Roopini , Yang, Wenhui , Zeng, Tianran , Yang, Perry Pei-Ju

In the face of critical concerns about climate change and explosive urban population growth, cities worldwide are beginning to explore how “Smart City” approaches can address these challenges. The 2017 Urban Design Studio explores how the design, planning, and management of cities can create a resilient urban fabric, flexible enough to accommodate ongoing growth and capable of absorbing inevitable future environmental shocks. The Studio investigates one of 2020 Summer Olympic Game sites, Urawa Misono, a satellite town of Tokyo’s metropolitan region, as a pilot for this approach. Working with partners at the University of Tokyo, the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) and the Global Carbon Project (GCP) we explore the role of smart city technologies, ecological performance modeling, and third-party sustainability certifications in designing an alternative future for Urawa Misono. Our resulting proposal is an ecologically responsive, disaster-resilient and human-sensing urban environment. A highly interdisciplinary effort, this studio was led by Dr. Perry Yang (Georgia Institute of Technology), Dr. Yoshiki Yamagata (Global Carbon Project and National Institute for Environmental Studies), and Dr. Akito Murayama (University of Tokyo). Studio participants include Georgia Tech graduate students from architecture, city planning, policy, industrial design and interactive computing.

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