CASE STUDY: Big Data Make Cities Smarter

1. What technologies is New York employing to improve the quality of life of its citizens?

The technologies that New York employing to improve the quality of life of its citizens is create Smart City by using the Big Data. New York opened the Centre for Urban Science and Progress under the direction of Steven E. Koonin. He want to manage urban efficiency projects ranging from traffic management to reducing water and electricity consumption by 30 to 50 percent in ten years. 

2. What are the people, organization, and technology issues that should be addressed by “smart city” initiatives? 

The people, organization and technology issues that should be addressed by smart city initiatives was noise pollution, assemble thermal image of buildings across the city that will serve as the basis for energy use studies and possible abuses, safeguards, including removing names and tax identification numbers and installing employee keystroke logs, have proven vulnerable to reverse identification and tampering. 

3. What problems are solved by “smart cities?” What are the drawbacks? 

Smart city is basically a city that functions properly and is run by competent people. The city will have to have its various agencies in sync with each other to optimize standards of living. The usage of technology would allow a city to run itself efficiently and would provide a partial solution to the various problems plaguing our cities. These include traffic, pollution, water supply, electricity supply, industrialization and more. A smart city would theoretically use CCTV cameras, hotlines panic buttons, identify systems to ensure the security of its population. A smart city would be able to react efficiently and quickly to alarms raised in various parts of the city, direct services by coordinating with its traffic department. A smart city would be able to keep criminals out using CCTV. A smart city would ensure that water and waste management systems would work better than they are now, leading to less environmental damage.

The Drawback is corruption. A smart city wouldn't eliminate corruption. Corruption might just become more sophisticated and lead to all the benefits being washed away. This can be changed through fostering a culture of accountability and honesty. Upgrading cities that already exist would be far more beneficial than creating new ones. Extremely high rise apartment blocks should be encouraged to conserve land around these paces. There is a risk that the gap between the poor and the rich might increase, especially if the working classes can't find any place in the new cities.

4. Give 4 examples of 4 decision that would be improved in a “smart city”. 

• Deployment of Broadband Networks.
•   Use of Smart Devices and Agents.
•     Developing Smart Urban Spaces.
•       Developing Web-based Applications and e-Services.
•          Opening up Government Data

5. Would you be concerned if social media data were used to supplement public data to help improve the delivery of municipal services? Why or why not?

1.  Yes; there are two civil society movements are campaigning for greater openness of information, documents and datasets held by public bodies. The first is the Right to Information movement, which promotes a public right of access to information from a human rights perspective. The second is the Open Government Data movement, which uses predominantly social and economic arguments to encourage the opening up of government data. 

  There is significant overlap between both movements, in that both aim to increase the transparency of government so that all members of society can enjoy the inherent social and economic value of information that has been generated and collected with public funds. Public agencies are trying to increase the transparency of government processes and performance by publishing relevant data online and sharing it with the public. Government data, made available in machine-readable, linked datasets that can also be searched and manipulated using standard tools, is a critical new resource for fuelling changes in value creation (economic, social and political) of a city or region. The OECD has identified 5 benefits to opening government data for a city, region or country:   

•         Improving government accountability, transparency, responsiveness and democratic control

•                    Promoting citizens self-empowerment, social participation and   engagement

•                       Building the next generation of empowered civil servants

•                             Fostering innovation, efficiency and effectiveness in government services

•                               Creating value for the wider economy

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