Guest Column
A
leap towards modernization is important
today, particularly in India. Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has envisaged to build 100
‘smart cities’ across the country, which is
still lacking in basic services such as uninterrupted
power supply, motorable roads and safe drinking water.
Emerging markets governments’ have long under-
stood the significance of ‘smart cities’, but their under-
standing of what constitutes a smart city has become
exponentially more ambitious.
Availability of affordable technology now presents an
unprecedented growth opportunity for emerging and
frontier economies to leapfrog the development cycle.
However, one should remember that technology cannot
succeed in isolation. Planners need to create an ecosys-
tem to achieve desired sustainable economic success.
Today’s smart cities embrace not only technology, but
also look into aspects such as education, security, culture
and particularly, the environment. For instance the
smart city concept for Vizag toyed with the model of
building a motor-free walkable city for people, green
power generation distributed without power poles, and
scientific pruning of trees. The extended cities like Elec-
tronic City Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Noida, Hinjewadi
in Pune or Cyberabad in Hyderabad; could also work as
case studies to build modern or smart habitats.
A few decades ago -- supporting the bureaucratic, so-
cial and physical infrastructure -- everything from town
planning to policing to education -- could develop or-
ganically at the same pace. However, that’s no longer the
case. Leapfrogging straight from the rice paddy to the
digital economy successfully requires planning, fore-By Khawar Iqbal
SMART CITY PLAN
SHOULD FOCUS ON
PEOPLE, NOT JUST
TECHNOLOGY