The smart city of the future: how technology is changing urban space

Professor Alicja Krzemińska and Dr Anna Zaremba of the Institute of Geography and Regional Development at the University of Wrocław discussed what the smart city of the future will be like.

The city of the future is, first and foremost, a city that integrates different systems. Today transport, energy, buildings, water supply, waste management, spatial data and environmental monitoring often operate separately. In the long run, however, they should work as a single urban ecosystem.

Such a system can be compared to a digital nervous system. The city will have numerous sensors and detectors monitoring the environment. Communication networks will transmit the information, and algorithms will analyse it and help with decision-making.

This is not just about technological modernisation. The main task of a Smart City is to help the city function better and cope with today’s challenges, particularly those related to climate change.

The next stage in the development of smart cities may be Smart City 4.0. But even this model is not the final one. The future belongs to cities that can adapt and regenerate the urban system, renewing themselves before serious problems arise.

At the same time, a smart city’s success should not be judged solely by the amount of technology installed. Far more important indicators are people’s health, the city’s resilience and the state of its ecosystems.

There are already cities in Europe actively developing the Smart City concept; Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Bologna are among those mentioned. At the same time, the researchers say, smart city technologies are developing particularly fast in China. Beijing and Shenzhen are already moving beyond the traditional Smart City model.

One of the foundations of the modern smart city is the Internet of Things, or IoT: a network of physical devices that can take measurements, process information, exchange data and interact with other systems.

IoT makes it possible to monitor the condition of urban infrastructure. Sensors can track, for example, the load on a bridge and the vibrations in its structure, the volume of water in the mains or the amount of energy buildings consume.

Even ordinary street lighting can become smart. It can take on additional functions, such as monitoring how full waste bins are.

Another promising tool is the digital twin — a digital model of the urban environment that makes it possible to work with large amounts of data and to simulate various processes.

Technology is even used to look after urban greenery. Sensors installed on trees can monitor temperature and other environmental parameters, while special systems regulate how much water the plants receive. This helps keep green spaces healthy while saving natural resources.

China is a particularly telling example of Smart City development. According to the researchers, the difference between European and Chinese cities is visible even at the level of everyday life.

Mobile apps play an important role. You can use them to order goods, use public transport and taxis, and pay for all kinds of services. These systems also provide information about traffic conditions and getting around the city.

But the key difference lies in the use of predictive models.

A new-generation smart city does not just report what is happening now. It can predict what will happen in 20 minutes, an hour or a little later.

For example, the system can predict that a traffic jam will form in a particular district. Or it can warn that in an hour’s time the temperature in a certain place will be extremely high, which could be dangerous for elderly people.

To do this, data is collected practically in real time and then processed using models and algorithms. The shift from simple monitoring to forecasting is one of the key stages in the development of smart cities.

Another important component of the Smart City is intelligent energy.

The modern energy system is gradually turning the ordinary consumer into a prosumer — a person or household that not only consumes electricity but also produces it.

A house with solar panels, for example, may draw electricity from the grid at one moment and, at another, produce more than it consumes and feed the surplus back into the grid.

This creates a complex, dynamic system that has to be balanced. That is precisely why Smart Grids — intelligent power grids — are being developed.

They use metering, communication systems and digital automation to match electricity generation and consumption.

A telling example is the evening, when residents come home. Household appliances, heating or air conditioning all switch on at once, and electric car owners plug their vehicles in to charge. This puts a significant load on the grid.

A smart system can optimise this process. If the owner only needs the car in the morning, there is no need to charge it as soon as they get home. The system can shift charging to a time when the load on the grid is lower.

In this way, technology makes it possible not just to produce more energy but also to manage its consumption more intelligently.

A smart city is not only about transport, energy and digital devices. Natural and climatic factors play an important role too.

These include changes in temperature, air quality, various kinds of warnings and the development of blue-green infrastructure. All these elements can be combined into a single system and used to build models of how the urban environment behaves.

A large database makes it possible to predict negative impacts and to protect people from their consequences in advance.

At the same time, the modern smart city is increasingly focused on people. Technology should help not only to regenerate the urban environment and make it greener but also to improve residents’ everyday lives.

The participation of residents themselves is becoming an important component of the smart city.

Dedicated apps can let people report problems to municipal services, communicate with them and get feedback. Data coming from residents can be combined with information collected by the municipal services.

This data is then turned into models that help improve the quality of the urban environment.

So the resident of a smart city is not just a passive user of digital services. They become a source of information and a participant in running the city.

When we hear the words “Smart City”, we often picture a city filled with cameras, sensors, Internet of Things devices and other technological novelties.

But technology in itself does not make a city smart. The real value of such systems lies in the ability to use data and predictive models to make people’s lives easier, increase the city’s resilience and respond to problems in advance.

At the same time, this model has another side. The more a city knows about its residents, the more data about their lives ends up in digital systems. That is why, alongside the technological possibilities, there is the question of privacy and digital monitoring.

The Smart City of the future is not just a collection of new technologies. It is a system in which transport, energy, infrastructure, the environment, data and residents are all interconnected.

The next stage of development is the shift from a city that merely records events to one that understands their causes, predicts future changes and can act ahead of time.

In such a model, technology becomes not an end in itself but a tool. Its main purpose is to make the urban environment more resilient, more efficient and safer for people — without losing sight of privacy and the participation of residents themselves.

Author

Dr. Myroslav Trofymuk

Born in Lviv. Designer, director, musician, researcher, founder of ZEMLA STUDIO. Master of classical philology and digital marketing, PhD in the history of Ukrainian literature. Member of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine. Since 2022 he has authored the CENTRUM MUNDI audio show for Polish Radio for Ukraine, continuing the same research into the contemporary music scene in Ukraine and Poland.

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