Blog
USC 2013 Meeting – September 10 and 11, Imperial College, London
We are excited to announce that our Annual Urban Systems Collaborative meeting will be held in the heart of London on the Imperial College grounds. We are grateful to our colleagues from Imperial for making this possible. Our theme this year is “Cities as a design challenge”.
read moreWhat is a city and how does it get smarter?
The World Cities Network is producing some good material on smart cities recently and I very much liked this article. More…
read morePrivacy in digital cities: Google Glass, the right to choose, and the enduring legacy of Jane Jacobs
Here’s a great article on a difficult topic of privacy in smart cities from my colleague in IBM UK, Rick Robinson. It was a talk presented at a recent workshop during the Academy of Urbanism’s Annual Congress in Bradford, UK on 16 March 2013. The theme of the congress was “Can digital technology help us build better...
read moreX and the City
Fame at last for urban science! The May 2013 edition of the Smithsonian magazine has an excellent article on quantitative approaches to urban studies. It features stories and photographs of many of our colleagues including Geoff West, Luis Bettencourt, Jose Lobo, and Steve Koonin. More…
read moreNational Academies of Science / Pathways to Urban Sustainability Workshop: A Focus on the Portland Region
For more than 40 years, the City of Portland and the Portland Metropolitan Region have been national leaders in urban policies and investments intended to revitalize the central city and adjacent neighborhoods, preserve the environment, improve equity, and make the city more economically competitive and livable. The “Portland brand” has been both emulated as path breaking and discounted as overly idiosyncratic. Among the elements contributing to Portland’s success have been strong public-private partnerships, a culture of planning, and a...
read moreEngineering Smart Cities
Design Buildings Wiki is an interesting and very open Wiki on the design of buildings and cities. The current article is on approaches to Engineering Smart Cities. More…
read moreCities as Ideas
When Peter the Great visited Amsterdam in 1697, he was dazzled. It was the richest city in the world, a maritime superpower and a global trade hub—confirmation of the West’s superiority in technology, education, and the arts. The contrast between the brilliance and worldliness of Amsterdam and the dreariness and xenophobia of his own capital, Moscow, was not to be borne. He wanted an Amsterdam of his own. So he built one....
read moreThe Hidden Biases in Big Data
his looks to be the year that we reach peak big data hype. From wildly popular big data conferences to columns in major newspapers, the business and science worlds are focused on how large datasets can give insight on previously intractable challenges. The hype becomes problematic when it leads to what I call “data fundamentalism,” the notion that correlation always indicates causation, and that massive data sets and predictive analytics always reflect objective truth. FormerWired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson embraced this...
read moreMayor Bloomberg’s Geek Squad
Here is a great article from a recent New York Times on a team set up by Michael Bloomberg to demonstrate the power of data – all kinds of data – to help make sense of what is going on in a city. I think that this is a terrific example of “smart” and how it can help us to get our arms around even very large, gnarly problems….
read moreCall for Papers – Urbannet at the European Conference on Complex Systems 2013
Urbannet is a Satellite Workshop of the European Conference on Complex Systems ECCS 2013 hosted in Barcelona. The workshop will take place in the afternoon of Wed. September 18 and will encompass 3 invited talks of 40 minutes each and 5 contributed talks of 20 min each. The concept of the ‘smart city’ emerged during the last decade as a fusion of ideas about how ICT might improve the functioning of cities, enhancing their efficiency and contributing to sustainable development and high quality of life. Currently the central role of ICT...
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Smart Cities Network
- Smart City Networks to maintain upgraded Wi-Fi network at Lucas Oil Stadium and Indianapolis Convention Center - Enhanced Wi-Fi network will offer greater connectivity for future events
- Las Vegas Convention Center partners with Smart City Networks for digital signage network
- San Diego Convention Center to offer free Wi-Fi