Are smart cities dumb?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2019
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Driverless cars powered by renewable energy whisking their healthy and happy citizens between gleaming skyscrapers, criss-crossing efficient roads. That’s the dream of many so called smart cities.
The trend for ‘smart cities’ has grown immensely over the last decade and their definition has evolved too. Hundreds are planned or are already being built around the world, in both rich and poor countries.
From Google’s Sidewalk city to Eko Atlantic in Nigeria, tech companies are seeking to tame our ever more urban world.
But critics worry that instead of being clever solutions they simply reinforce the existing poverty and inequality. How can a tech giant solve the problems of the developing world when people need water not wifi? We ask, are smart cities dumb?
Presenter: Kavita Puri Producer: Jordan Dunbar
Image: Sunrise in New York City Credit: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me, Kavita Puri, each week, one question, four expert witnesses and an |
| 0:15.0 | notorious gang member throws a bottle into general. |
| 0:18.0 | It's late in the evening in downtown Rio de Janeiro, |
| 0:19.0 | a notorious gang member throws a bottle into a moving car. The driver gets out, a fight starts, others |
| 0:27.8 | join in, petrol bombs start being hurled, the situation quickly escalates. |
| 0:35.8 | In Rio's command center, a camera spots them. |
| 0:39.5 | Operators in crisp white jumpsuits watch the scene unfold. In front of them is a giant wall |
| 0:46.0 | monitor broken into a grid of status graphs, meteorological reports and live video |
| 0:51.7 | fees from traffic and surveillance cameras. |
| 0:55.0 | The gang are located. |
| 0:58.0 | The nearest police units are sent to the scene of the crime. |
| 1:02.0 | The fire brigade are on their way to put out the fires. |
| 1:04.9 | Transport authorities reroute the buses. Traffic systems are alerted. |
| 1:10.0 | This is all done in vision. Rio now has the most integrated |
| 1:14.0 | this is not some futuristic vision. |
| 1:20.0 | Rio now has the world's most integrated urban command center. |
| 1:25.0 | All of the city's 30 departments can be seen in one single monitoring room. |
| 1:31.0 | It's just one way a smart city can look, using tech to make |
| 1:38.6 | our cities more connected, livable, healthier and even greener. |
| 1:44.0 | Is this a bright future or with 24 hour surveillance, a science fiction nightmare. |
| 1:56.7 | This week we ask, are smart cities dumb? dumb. |
| 2:07.0 | Part one, the future is now. |
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