Global Resources and Promising Practices for Building and Refining Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities from Darren Bates LLC.
OP-ED in Reply To: “Reimagining cities from the internet up” by Daniel L. Doctoroff Dear Daniel L. Doctoroff, Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! I applaud and appreciate your efforts and the efforts of your team at Sidewalk Labs for demonstrating the importance of listening, learning, and putting all people first. Like yourself, I understand the urban public realm and am eager to see…
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Historically, the development of cities was spearheaded by kings but in contemporary times, cities are actively shaped by five types of socio-political actors: Agenda-setters (city councils/governments), Experts (urban planners), Sponsors (investors), Developers (contractors) and … Citizens (residents, public-interest groups, industry influencers, academia leaders, visitors)! However, much of the research and planning around smart cities is driven by technology rather than by the needs of the citizens. The citizen experience is often overlooked! To redesign this experience citizens need to have a seat at the table.
Smart cities can empower their citizens to design and shape their future. Toronto, for example, has been leveraging its “creative class” of financiers, healthcare researchers, artists, corporate strategists, lawyers, and social work pioneers to shape the future of the city the way citizens want.
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It is very important for planners to understand the capacity of any city to hold the population, suitability for urban activities, geographical location, proximity to different hazards, present vulnerability and future risks to develop smart cities
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/.title Nov 26, 2017 /.title-container The 3rd of December marks the International Day of Persons with Disability and the start of Disability Week 2017. To mark this day, on Friday, 24 November, 2017, Hon. MEP Marlene Mizzi hosted the public conference Accessibility Without Discrimination at the Phoenicia Hotel, supported by the S&D group in the European Parliament. The Malta…
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In 2007 US creative cities “guru” Richard Florida was flown up to Noosa to tell the local city council how they, too, could become a creative city.
Noosa was one of a long line of cities across the globe queuing up to pay big bucks to the US-based academic-entrepreneur. “Being creative” had become an almost universal aspiration. Who would not want to be a creative city?
And so Creative [insert name of city here] signs sprang up in the most unlikely places, along with stock shots of creative young things hunched over laptops in cafes.
Ten years later, different gurus are being flown around and the signs have been replaced by Smart [insert name of city here]. The stock shots are much the same, but now the young things are being innovative, disruptive and above all “smart”. That’s the trouble with fast policy: here today, gone tomorrow.
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The Dallas Innovation Alliance (DIA) continues to work to turn Dallas into a smart city through the use of IoT technologies. The entity is currently testing several uses cases to implement different technologies to make Dallas a smarter and safer city. DIA is a public-private partnership dedicated to the design and execution of a smart cities plan for the City of Dallas.
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How to create a smart city, a case study in Dallas Phillip Tracy 2016-11-04 Simple Share Buttons Adder (7.3.10) simplesharebuttons.com The benefits and processes of creating a smart city DALLAS–Jennifer Sanders, the executive director and co-founder of the Dallas Innovation Alliance, gave a talk titled Creating a smart city legacy: innovation, sustainability and collaboration for future generations, at this year’s TMForum…
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Many have attempted, and failed, to integrate technology into urban planning. and now Sidewalk Labs is trying it again in Toronto. tml-version=”Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation start-up owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, has announced a partnership with the City of Toronto to develop a new waterfront precinct. Time to ask Google: Can you build a city? The Quayside precinct,…
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In this episode, we talk with deaf-blind civil rights lawyer and accessibility advocate Haben Girma about accessible justice and how designing courts, law firms, and the attorney-client relationship for people with disabilities can increase access to justice for everyone.
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“When you book a hotel and want an accessible room, you need to really know what that means and if it will meet your needs,” Wandke said.
But the travel industry is not set up to do this. Not only are websites often ill-equipped to allow people to select rooms that meet specific physical requirements, even when customers call, hotel staff frequently don’t know what their facility has to offer or they might provide misinformation.
Wandke and Flint are hoping to solve this problem. They’re working on a website called AbiliTrek that allows travelers to find and book rooms that meet specific needs for mobility, hearing or visual challenges. They’re using crowdsourcing to build a database of reviews focused on accessibility. AbiliTrek will also call hotels to help people find suitable rooms….
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Airbnb is part of something called the sharing economy, an evolving system in which people who own certain things, like homes or cars, rent them out to others when they are not using them. In many cases, travelers can save a significant amount of money by staying at an Airbnb host’s property rather than at a hotel. Uber is another company that is part of the sharing economy. Drivers use their own vehicles to drive people around town. Despite Uber’s sometimes lax regulations and harassment and discrimination scandals, people still love using it and other services like it because of their lower prices and the ease of summoning a vehicle.
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Our daily lives have changed radically in recent years thanks to new technology. But… how have people with physical or intellectual disabilities benefitted from this change? Experts believe technology hasn’t permeated society equally. Services have been developed that allow the rest of the citizens to be more involved through digital management of many spheres of community life, but people with disabilities still have many needs that have not yet benefitted from this. These may, paradoxically, set up new barriers in developed societies….
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Cities need to make better use of resources and become more efficient: Policies, regulation, citizen involvement and standards are all key components needed to build a viable Smart City. While all are important, in a path towards smarter cities, standardization will play a key role in ensuring consistent outcomes. Standards are relevant in the physical world, where they allow for the interconnection of hardware and technologies, but also in the virtual space where they facilitate data collection/sharing as well as city operation….
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This article aims to educate and challenge current thought leadership and emerging policies concerning the development of our Smart Cities, and the design and deployment of digital technologies and their impact on citizen wellbeing. We want to ensure that future Infrastructure and Smart City solutions serve the needs of all sectors of society; including people living with sensory loss, older people, people with physical disability, and people with learning disabilities. These sectors of society are so often forgotten and have struggled for years in a world defined by a legacy of Victorian infrastructure; as we move to the next great era of technology innovation, our policies and standards for city design and infrastructure investment need to proactively champion inclusivity for everyone.
Inclusion for all sectors of society surely has to be an important metric to attain ‘Smart City’ status….
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As digital data becomes a key resource to build sustainable cities, all urban stakeholders need to adapt. Development actors must step up efforts to integrate this new paradigm and broker impactful and inclusive partnerships around urban data, write AFD’s Gwenael Prie and Pierre-Arnaud Barthel in this guest column.
Inclusiveness is another key element of smart city, according to Philippe Orliange, director of strategy, partnerships, and communication at the French development agency, Agence Française de Développement.
“Smart cities are about changing the fabric of urban policy so that citizens are involved in the design of the city, so that policies address real needs, and are socially inclusive,” he said….
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Help municipalities build #inclusion #SmartCities by using 3-D modeling tools that show the diversity of citizens, including seniors & people with disabilities.
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As we’ve previously reported, making our cities smarter and more inclusive will become increasingly important in the next decades.
“Current projections are that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, and with an ageing population comes higher levels of ill-health, impairment and disability.
“Futurists, tech visionaries and urban stakeholders have been talking about ‘smart cities’ for a number of years …and they could transform the lives of those with disabilities,” said Robin Christopherson, AbilityNet’s head of digital inclusion.
But, at a Smart Cities NYC conference in New York last month, there was concern that mobile apps, government services and other smart city tools aren’t properly incorporating the needs of disabled people.
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For ICLEI, Smart Cities are the ones that look at the big picture, using resource efficiency and technological progress as well as taking overall urban governance into account to achieve a wider vision of sustainable cities and communities. This balanced approach ensures that the adoption of smart solutions in cities is people-focused, benefits urban citizens and ultimately leads to a safe, inclusive and sustainable future….
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Like many other fast-growing urban centers, my hometown of Austin, TX has reached a historic tipping point triggered by Austin’s rapid urbanization. Austin City Leadership recognizes it must engage in vastly new approaches to adjust and calibrate to social and economic challenges amplified by the lightning speed of technical and industrial advances. To address these challenges, Austin is taking a big leap into the Smart City pond.
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The key to successful smart cities is addressing the current and future needs of every citizen. This is especially important for those who are aging or have disabilities. Inclusiveness should be at the forefront of every smart city strategy. The lens of design for inclusion is critical to make certain the promise of smart cities helps close the digital divide, rather than widen the gap. Moreover, cities are networks of diverse individuals and people who are aging and living with disabilities are integral to these networks—along with their families, neighbors and caregivers.
What’s the blueprint for building a smart, inclusive city? AT&T compiled insights and proposed guidelines in a new white paper, “Smart Cities for All: A Vision for an Inclusive, Accessible Urban Future.”
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