POST 3: INDIVIDUAL WORK ON 'THE IDEA OF PROGRESS' VIEWED THROUGH HIGH TECH PRODUCTS

Smart Cities

This document is a video (documentary or campaign maybe) about Barcelona becoming a Smart City. It was published in January 2014, 8 months ago so it is very a very recent project although it is already working. This video is about how big cities in the world (here, the example is Barcelona) use high technology to make the city a nicer place to live in and an easier access to it.

When you first watch the video, what catches the eye at first sight are all the new "connections" that are available in the city. We can see for example some kind of digital box and a ben which is there to show at how many percent it is filled. This, for example, is part of the enviromental progress of the city and also esthetic.

Next, the voice over says that in big cities, 40% of the trafic is caused by cars trying to find a parking place. The solution to this problem has been found and we can see it in the document: inground parkment sentors can comunicate with devices to inform the desperate driver where to find a free parking place, and how many parking places are left in a certain area. This is a big progress for cities because it means less cars moving in the cities. If you think about it twice, finding a parking place fast means using less your car, and if you multiply this by the number of cars that are used in the city, it makes a considerable change for the environment. Less cars, less polution.

Afterwords, they talk about "connecting" the city and its citizens. By installing free wifi in buses, metro, and creating these new "smart bus stops", it is more easy and less stressfull to use metro and buses, and it gives people a reason to use their car less and less. These connections, added to the apps on smartphones that already exist, give you the exact amount of time you need to wait for your bus or your metro, and helps you find the best itinerary to go from a place to another. Also, at the beginning of the video, we can see an app, on a smartphone, that can tell the weather. With wifi connection in almost all the city, citizens can know what is the weather at any time of the day, instead of waiting for the weather cast on T.V in the evening. This wifi connection also makes them feel like their are home because they have the same fast network then in their houses.

Barcelona is installing highly efficient street lights, which makes the city a safer, nicer and more ecological place. This new light technology is saving a great amount of energy, which is one of the most important upsides of these new Smart Cities.

This document shows us how we can use new technologies in the best way we can, not only for pleasure, but for social, econominc and environmental betterment. The Smart Cities give to the citizens an easier and nicer access to the city and a very modern lifestyle, but also works on preserving the planet from pollution and waste.