Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 A tale of two stories
- 2 The ‘smart city’ story
- 3 What happens when ‘smart’ comes to town
- 4 Unholy alliance: how government, academics and Big Tech are colluding in the takeover of our cities
- 5 Why we’re the problem (and the solution)
- 6 Our disconnected cities: what ‘smart’ should be about
- 7 Yesterday’s cities of the future
- 8 Why it’s different this time
- 9 Why bother to save the city?
- 10 Smart for cities: time for a new story
- Notes
- Index
7 - Yesterday’s cities of the future
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 A tale of two stories
- 2 The ‘smart city’ story
- 3 What happens when ‘smart’ comes to town
- 4 Unholy alliance: how government, academics and Big Tech are colluding in the takeover of our cities
- 5 Why we’re the problem (and the solution)
- 6 Our disconnected cities: what ‘smart’ should be about
- 7 Yesterday’s cities of the future
- 8 Why it’s different this time
- 9 Why bother to save the city?
- 10 Smart for cities: time for a new story
- Notes
- Index
Summary
For better or worse, the smart city has opened up many avenues and opportunities for disruption. One path that is currently being followed around the globe concerns what are commonly known as ‘digital twins’. According to one smart city evangelist, digital twins are ‘hot’:
Sensors and data analytics, AI, machine learning and drones, are feeding information real-time, giving life to these digital models, which have evolved becoming into more complex representations of their physical counterparts, and no longer of isolated single objects, but full-fledged systems of interconnected things.
A digital twin is a virtual model that replicates an actual city. It allows modellers and decision-makers – politicians, engineers, architects, real estate developers and planners – to pull virtual levers and test ‘what happens if ‘ scenarios, posing questions such as what would be the impact of a new shopping centre on traffic congestion in the area, or how would the city's economy react to a change in business taxation?
Such transcendent oversight and power is the Holy Grail for many. That is why cities from Singapore to Newcastle are rushing to develop their digital twin, convinced that they can model, predict and then test interventions without the contested, costly and time-consuming bother of actually talking to and persuading residents and communities. Some greenfield cities like Amaravati, a US$6.5 billion new smart city in Andhra Pradesh, were created or ‘born’ with a digital twin. According to Michael Jansen, CEO of Cityzenith, a company that develops digital twin software, ‘Everything that happens in Amaravati will be scenarioized in advance to optimize outcomes, and adjusted on the fly to keep pace with change. This represents a giant leap forward for cities, how they’re designed, built, and managed, and how they optimize their relationships with the private sector and their own citizens.’ The superficial appeal of such approaches is not difficult to see:
What yesterday's greenfield cities took 100 years to do, today's greenfield cities will achieve in under 25 years, and they will do it with the help of the universally-integrative and omni-predictive capabilities of Digital Twin software platforms.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Forgotten CityRethinking Digital Living for our People and the Planet, pp. 125 - 148Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2021