Smart Cities

There exists no universally accepted definition of a smart city. The concept of smart city varies from country to country depending on its level of development in terms of infrastructure, resources available and needs of city residents. To provide with a rudimentary concept, urban planners have focused on four important pillars of institutional, physical, social and economic infrastructure aspects to define a smart city.

This can be a long term goal and cities can work towards achieving balance amongst the four aforementioned aspects inclusive of development, without compromising on sustainability of resources. Smart city project in India was conceptualized to address issues related to rapid urbanization, sustainable livelihood, migration, job opportunities and so on.

The mission was started in 2015 by Prime Minister of India, envisioning to develop 100 Indian cities as model areas to impact surrounding cities and town centers. Mission includes three models: retrofitting of existing cities, redevelopment and greenfield development. It also involves six broad components: smart living, smart people, smart mobility, smart environment, smart economy and smart governance. Taking the advantage of geospatial data, historic visualization of these cities along with supporting statistics helps re-framing innovative strategies in managing basic amenities and appropriate region specific solutions.