In 1997, a London academic published a startling vision on how humans will live in the future. Professor Michael Batty, a renowned urban planner, summed it up in one phrase: [The Computable City".By 2050, he says, there will be a [massive convergence" of computers and communications technologies, with highways and [smart buildings" connected via the internet in new kinds of vast information infrastructures. [Everything around us," he wrote, [will be some form of computer."
A smart city is an urban development vision to integrate multiple information and communication technology (ICT) and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions in a secure fashion to manage a city's assets – the city's assets include, but are not limited to, local departments' information systems, schools, libraries, transportation systems, hospitals, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, and other community services. The goal of building a smart city is to improve quality of life by using urban informatics and technology to improve the efficiency of services and meet residents' needs. ICT allows city officials to interact directly with the community and the city infrastructure and to monitor what is happening in the city, how the city is evolving, and how to enable a better quality of life. Through the use of sensors integrated with real-time monitoring systems, data are collected from citizens and devices – then processed and analyzed. The information and knowledge gathered are keys to tackling inefficiency.[