Smart Cities Need H.E.A.R.T.

Lots of smart people are talking about smart cities. There is an increasing urgency to take action, given that more than 50% of us already live in urban environments -- a statistic expected to be 66% by 2050. Recently Austin, my hometown, played host to global thought leaders at the Cities Summit during the SXSW conference. It was both informative and inspiring to listen to a cross section of civic leaders, creative urbanists and concerned citizen advocates.

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Chelsea Collier
355 smart-city projects in 221 cities; 18% cut across industry ‘verticals’

There are 355 smart city projects in 221 cities, according to a new report from Navigant Research; almost one in five now cut across multiple industry sectors, as smart city integration gathers pace. The total value of the smart cities market will more than double in the next decade, from $40.1 billion in 2017 to 94.2 billion by the end of 2026.

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First PAWR Testbeds Land in Salt Lake City, NYC

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) announces an important milestone in its Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) effort. In collaboration with an industry consortium of 28 networking companies and associations, NSF is supporting the development and deployment of the first two PAWR research platforms, based in Salt Lake City and New York City. These platforms will power research motivated by real-world challenges on experimental, next generation wireless test beds at the scale of cities and communities. The goal is to advance the state of the art for wireless technology beyond today's 4G, LTE and emerging 5G capabilities.

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Smart Cities Connect 2018: How Ann Arbor (Mich.) Drained Stormy Waters Smartly

In recent years, the city of Ann Arbor, Mich., has struggled to deal with increased floodwaters reaching the city. To funnel pooling waters after intense storms safely away, the city worked with the University of Michigan to develop Open Storm, a package of open-source sensors, hardware and algorithms to measure and control storm water.

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Chicago, Indianapolis Bet Big on User-Centric Design

Paying a water bill or filing a business license fee in Chicago is getting easier. The city has organized payments under one platform and launched the application on 50 new kiosks to be arranged around the city — in locations as varied as police stations to libraries — with the aim of making certain transactions with Chicago quicker and more seamless. The kiosks are expected to roll out this summer.

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Smart Cities Connect 2018: Mayors Tap Data to Make Smart City Projects a Success

In Jasper, Ind., Mayor Terry Seitz leads a three-year initiative to bring a fiber network to all residents and businesses to his town of 15,000. He won support for the plan by explaining the opportunities the network would create as well as warning the city could be left behind in innovation and prosperity if it didn’t invest.

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Mayor Dale Ross and Georgetown, Tx Getting National Recognition for Going All-Green

Austin’s northern neighbor of Georgetown has been making surprising waves in the nationalpress and in several movies and documentaries, including Al Gore’s latest. This town of 67,000, “one of the redder towns in one of the redder counties in Texas,” in the words of its mayor, has become one of “the first US towns, and the largest in Texas, to depend entirely on renewable energy,” in a process that began in 2012.  We spoke with Mayor Dale Ross recently to hear about his vision and to discuss how green and tech innovation in Georgetown and Austin might influence each other.

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Industrial mobility: How autonomous vehicles can change manufacturing

The popular fascination with self-driving passenger cars has opened a new era of how we envision moving people. Meanwhile, a parallel lane has also opened: automating how we move things. While we have yet to marvel at convoys of driverless and digitally connected eighteen-wheelers, or even set cargo-hoisting drones aflight, they seem nearly visible on the horizon.

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How some cities are attracting 5G investments ahead of others

As communities across the United States wait to learn how high-speed mobile networks will figure in a long-promised infrastructure plan, some cities are already attracting private investment in next-generation 5G networks. They are doing so by finding new ways to collaborate with network and equipment providers, creating a set of “best practices” that other local governments can follow.

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Cities, USA, PolicyChelsea Collier5G