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SANDEEP GOSWAMI COO, FOUNTAINHEAD II Smart Cities- A Dummy’s Guide A smart city was always a town-planner and architects dream; only in their parlance it was called New Urbanism. The concept is a township where people have easy access to school, markets, hotels and hospitals all at walking distance. Even the Business district would be just a few kilometres away. But the heavy manufacturing industries would be exactly 25 Km away, on the other side of the “ring road”. Thus the inside of the ring has the habitation and the outer-side the industrialization. A concept, those who were the early resident’s of the SAIL (Steel Authority of India Ltd ) Cities of Bhilai in Chhattisgarh, Durgapur in West Bengal, Rourkela in Odisha would be well aware of. In September 2014, India woke up to an adjective which became a noun. And very soon almost everyone uses it as a pronoun without even understanding what it actually means Smart Cities. There is almost a parallel economy working around it. In a weak market, that of course is nothing to complain about. But it would not sustain unless the real meaning is understood and made sustainable. Else the bubble will burst. So what actually is a smart city and how does the common person start to understand and benefit from it? To understand a smart city concept we must first find the reason why rather than how. Once the why is understood, there would be various paths open to attain the goal. To begin with, let’s take the two words apart and understand them in context of each other. Smart Citizens Smart Citizens! Yes, that is the first fundamental of a city; it needs to a habitat of & by people. And the people who live in it find a life-style which is less stressful not because of technological and infrastructural advances, but by utilizing the same in a sane and civic manner. If you provide a road which would not get a single pot-hole for say 5 monsoon season, would not necessarily make motorist achieve the dream drive they see on TV adverts, but only if rules of driving are strictly followed. The stress-full heart, just recovering from its first mild attack needs not only the green expanses, which are found in every builder’s catalogue, but adherence to silence zones by cars and crackers alike. In a nutshell, we as a community need to wake up and be smart citizens by adhering to best practices in all walks of life. Unless that happens, we would continue living in Cities, but they would not necessarily become “Smart”. Now we look at the word City - As Environmental Architects and Consultants, the word which we use is “anthropogenic” which means “human induced”; when we talk about Climate Change due to Global Warming. And the solutions sought thereof within the sector. One must be made aware that buildings attribute to almost 30% of Global Green House Gas Emissions and almost equal that number in creating pollutions from building related activities. Be it building infrastructure or housing. This is the latest incoming data, which reinforces the fact that world over people are becoming smart. As World over there is a concentrated effort to curb the menace of pollution, which would lead to our extinction. Background On September 28th 2015, international, sub-national and business leaders who have the power to steer a global climate deal in Paris CoP 21 in December this year, met at the ‘Signature Event of Climate Week NYC 2015, to share their collective confidence in a successful outcome – and their tenacity to insure it happens. Our Union Minister for Environment and forest said “I believe in human intent and intervention. If human intervention caused climate change, human intent can end it”. Government of India under our PM, signed the agreement for the UNFCCC CoP-21 in Paris, ( the United Nations has a Frame work Convention for Climate Change and every year UN member Countries, {called parties, as the members convene in the Convention of Parties and the Paris meet would be the 21st such convention} ) and trying to work out a climate change strategy which focuses on attracting investments from developed countries in Green and Renewable Energy and Climate change technologies instead of capping carbon emission (reducing the amount of emission to a number) which could impact the country’s development aspirations. It is a genius attempt as with building and retrofitting of our cities we would not only be able to boost the economy and become an international power player, we would also be able to adhere to our commitments done post the CoP17 at Durban. Wherein we brought in our own National Action Plan on Climate Change. The 8 National Action Plans more or less reflect the goals as enshrined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal agenda which is by default an off-shoot of the Millennium Development Goals which all UN Members have agreed to follow. Now, having set the context we must combine the words SMART + City and delve into ways of creating one. Or retro- SMART CITIES 52 energética INDIA · MAR | APR16


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