The U.S. is Moving Closer to Making Smart Cities a Widespread Reality

Written by KOVA Corp

The idea behind the smart city is as revolutionary as it is easy to grasp.

In simple terms, a “smart city” is a development idea in which information systems from public safety, libraries, schools, transportation, hospitals, energy suppliers, waste management, law enforcement and beyond are integrated, allowing the officials of a city not only to make sure that services are carried out efficiently, but that they can remain in constant contact with their citizens.

Ideally, a smart city system would not only function effectively in the present, but be able to adapt to the city’s growth and evolution, thus constantly improving its residents way of life.

It’s an exciting concept, but one that will obviously take a great deal of work to achieve. And part of that work must be done through governmental means on both the state and federal level.

A recent Tech Republic article indicated that 90% of the companies that might be involved in a smart city project agreed that legislation is the key to the smart city concept being implemented effectively.

And on a federal level, the government has anticipated that need. Last year, members of the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Rep. Suzan DelBene began piecing together the laws and regulations ecessary to ensure that the smart city concept doesn’t simply remain on the urban development drawing board.

Rather than forcing the states to figure out the complexities of creating smart cities within their own borders, the legislation that the House is spearheading would be designed to take a look at the challenges that these cities could potentially be up against when implementing the smart city plan.

The most important of these are budgetary concerns - however, another major concern is the hiring of a workforce qualified to create and manage the technology required for this type of project.

These efforts are designed to help cities eliminate the obstacles standing in the way of creating and implementing a smart city plan and help officials revamp their services to fit the requirements of the projects.

Drafts of this legislation emphasize the importance of prototypical pilot projects to get preliminary results the cities need, and also ideas for drawing in public and private investors to offset the budgetary concerns.

The House has expanded their work to include members of the Senate, and both houses of Congress are hopeful that by working together, they can create legislation that will help the revolutionary smart-city idea come to fruition.

But there are other branches of government involved in the development of smart city aid for the states, as well.

The Department Of Transportation recently created the Smart City Challenge, a program which asked mid-sized cities from all over the country to submit ideas for integrated transportation systems that would move their residents more quickly and efficiently.

In the end, 78 different cities submitted ideas, and the winner of the Challenge, Columbus, OH, was awarded a $40 million grant by the DOT in order for the city to get started on their proposed upgrades and try to make their concepts a reality.

And there are efforts being made outside the government to develop new legislation and spread the word about smart cities, as well. Companies like Qualcomm and CompTIA are weighing in with ideas for potential smart city bills that would create standards designed to guide local and state governments in their smart city development process.

These bills would create grants for economic development in the areas of infrastructure, city services and new technology, allowing the chosen cities to move at a much faster pace towards the smart city plan.

There’s even a smart city readiness guide called Ideas To Action that goes into in-depth detail on how to put upgrades into place within a city’s infrastructure, the benefits of potentially outsourcing portions of the development process (or all of it, depending on a city’s budget restrictions) and other ideas on how to bring the smart city plan to fruition.

To learn more about the smart city phenomenon, read our post “How Big Data is Helping Prevent Crime and Make Cities Safer.

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