South Korea’s second largest city is using new, inclusive technology to bring down barriers to mobility for people who are blind.
Read MoreNew Smart Tech Helps Visually Impaired South Koreans Increase Mobility
Category: Citizen Co-Creation
4 Urban Planning Fails We Need to Correct
When urban planners envision their work for the 21st century, many often say it’ll begin with fixing the shortcomings put in place in the 20th century. However, the question remains whether professionals can make those changes quickly enough to avoid the worst consequences of their mistakes. Here are four urban planning fails that should be near the top of the list as professionals assess what to address first.
Read MoreInnovations for a People-Centric, Happy City
Citizen participation throughout the urban planning process can lead to the development of spaces and buildings that enable cities to develop urban environments that truly reflect people’s needs and preferences.
Read MoreAging Population Needs Walkable, Bikeable Cities
Seniors have the most to gain from pedestrian and cycling improvements—yet they often feel threatened by changes that provide alternatives to driving. Here are ways to include seniors in active transportation planning. The first time someone accused me of being “ableist” I was shocked. I was advocating ways to make downtown more walkable, including pedestrianizing some streets. I view walkability…
Read MoreHow Smart Cities Can Make Seniors Independent?
To ensure #SmartCities are correctly constructed for the elderly, it is necessary to include them in the planning phase. Young people cannot understand the issues faced by the elderly. such as climbing up the stairs or walking on an uneven sidewalk.
Read MoreFocus on Persons with Disabilities at UN Habitat Assembly
Hannes J. Lagrelius, WBU Programme Officer for Accessibility in Smart Cities Initiative sums up key highlights of the UN Habitat Assembly with reference to persons with disabilities. The Assembly was held on 27-31 May 2019, at the headquarters of UN-Habitat in Nairobi, Kenya.
Read MoreSmart Cities Need To Pay More Attention To People
Around 68% of the global population might live in urban areas by 2050. Smart cities will likely be a part of this future, promising to make our lives more convenient, more secure and more sustainable. Mostly, the stakeholders of smart city projects are politicians, consultants, academics and tech companies. However, the most important group of stakeholders is often missing: the…
Read MoreUsing New Mobility Models To Increase Access – Transportation For America
New mobility services have enormous potential to change the transportation landscape and increase access for all residents. But, only a few projects are actually focused on that. As new mobility models continue to have an impact on our transportation system and shift how our cities are designed and operate, cities and transit agencies are launching new pilot projects to test…
Read MorePhoenix Light Rail Station Designed For and By People With Disabilities
Can Phoenix become a transit city? It’s looking like more and more of a possibility lately. Phoenix’s Metro light rail system is less than six years old but has already surpassed ridership projections for 2020. The system is carrying 48,000 passengers a day, or 22,000 more than initially projected, according to the Arizona Republic. Extensions of the system, […] .entry-header Perhaps no other…
Read More3 Principles To Create A More “People Centered” Smart City
When it comes to dealing with the government, it’s rare that you find someone excited about the concept. City departments are notorious for mountains of paperwork, confusing rules and inefficiency. But according to a presentation titled “Reimagining the User Experience of Government” led by Brenna Berman and Mike Duffy, much of that is beginning to change.
Berman and Duffy are experts on the topic. Berman serves as Executive Director of City Digital, at UI Labs and was most recently the Chief Information Officer for the City of Chicago after spending more than a decade with IBM. Duffy is the Founder and CEO at CityBase, which is a company that “creates technology that makes government more personal and responsive.”
Read MoreSmart Cities Manifesto Ambassador Cities first results and Citizen Focus RoadMap for 2018 | @EUSmartCities
![Screenshot-2017-12-8 Smart Cities Manifesto Ambassador Cities first results and Citizen Focus RoadMap for 2018 EIP-SCC Mark[…]](https://i0.wp.com/www.smartcitieslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Screenshot-2017-12-8-Smart-Cities-Manifesto-Ambassador-Cities-first-results-and-Citizen-Focus-RoadMap-for-2018-EIP-SCC-Mark....jpg?fit=640%2C366&ssl=1)
On the 23rd of November 2016, the EIP-SCC Manifesto on Citizen Engagement was launched during the Conference Inclusive Smart Cities: A European Manifesto on Citizen Engagement. Being the result of a successful co-creation experiment, the Manifesto was in fact drafted with the direct engagement of more than 50 stakeholders that actively contributed to shape its contents. Thanks to a sound dissemination strategy and being co-promoted with ICLEI Europe and ERRIN, it has reached multiple European and international stakeholders, being endorsed by more than 120 public and private sectors representatives…..
Read MoreURBAN-X | Top 10 key takeaways from Smart City World Congress in Barcelona #SCEW17
e may have reached peak ‘smart city’. This trend depends on the continued densification of global urban areas and the exponential penetration of the internet into industries that were previously isolated from digitization. To see the peak in person, it’s best to get a glimpse at the Smart Cities World Congress in Barcelona; an event that brings together 17,000 people from around the world including 600 municipal leaders and over 500 international exhibitors.
At Urban-X, we see a new model for engineering the city as a service emerging; one in which top-down planning meets with bottoms-up participation and design that integrates people, businesses, buildings and other infrastructure. Open data and platforms that encourage creativity and economic vitality are a defining characteristic of the cities we want to live in.
The key to facing the climate crisis, security vulnerabilities and rapid urbanization is real citizen engagement and collaboration between the public and private sector. Startups have an important role to play, but the true economic potential of this space won’t be fully unlocked until we get good policy change and business model innovation from large companies.
Here are ten key takeaways from the Smart City World Congress in Barcelona that inform our path forward:
Read MoreAbout Citizen Focus: Smart City Citizen Co-Creation Stategies
n a time of urban transformation and digitalisation of smart cities, too little attention is sometime given to citizens. Citizen Focus Action Cluster strongly believes in citizens as fundamental actors for the regeneration and development of smart cities. Civic engagement, empowerment, participation and co-creation are at the basis of our advocacy approach since we acknowledge that citizen voice can be pivotal in providing the demand-side pressure on government, service providers and organisations needed to encourage full response to citizen needs…
Read MoreWho are smart cities going to help the most? | A #SmartCity Citizen Co-Creation Project
There’s no one way to build a smart city. Cities are different and the wants and needs of their citizens, while similar in many ways, are different in others. As many cities have found out, it’s not always easy to get citizens involved with planning and engaged in the process or who actually benefits (or does not benefit) from the…
Read MoreLet Children Plan Smart Cities For A Brighter Future
When kids put on their urban planner hats – cities are better for everyone The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child championed children’s participation in all social processes, but it wasn’t until the early 2000s that UNICEF took that goal further by introducing the concept of cities by and for children. In the last decade, organizations like the…
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