The next frontier in urban planning could be in building "smart infrastructure" for cities in partnership with multinational high-tech firms.
According to the Globe and Mail, renewing and creating "wired" infrastructure will be a huge global enterprise that will be worth up to $122-billion over the next two years. Such infrastructure will also provide a realm of data sources for planning and public administration that will represent a new "government ecosystem."
"City governments are...increasingly turning to such private companies as IBM, GE, Oracle and Cisco to overhaul city systems, applying high-tech business solutions to issues such as public transit and water management.
Last November, India and Japan unveiled a plan to build 24 'green cities' with clean energy supplies and waste recycling systems, all of which will be built by Japanese companies such as Hitachi and Mitsubishi. In South Korea, construction has begun on New Songdo City, a $35-billion instant metropolis that will grow from a man-made island in the Yellow Sea. The city will have technology built into every brick, building and streetlight, with everything from water to traffic wired through a single Internet-enabled utility, courtesy of Cisco."
FULL STORY: The new frontier of urban growth: High-tech partnership
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