The 5 tales of the Smart Cities.

1. The 5 tales of
Smart Cities
Marc Pous - Founder @ theThings.IO
marc@thethings.io

2. Technology is
the answer.
But what is the
question?
As the British architect Cedric Price said in the mid-1960s: “Technology is the answer.
But what is the question?”

3. 1
First tale of Smart Cities

4. He is Salvador Allende in 1970 after winning the Chilean presidential elections.

5. Stafford Beer was a scientific who created the theory of the cybernetics on the 1950s
.
On the 1970s he envisioned the Viable System Model for organisation modelling. He
was hired by the Chilean government to apply this organisation model into the
Chilean society.

6. This project was called the Cybersin Project and was called by the socialists the 4th
revolution of Socialism. It tried to bring socialism to everyone (citizens and
companies) through technology.

7. Viable system model
● System 1 in a viable system contains several primary activities. Each System 1
primary activity is itself a viable system due to the recursive nature of systems as
described above. These are concerned with performing a function that implements at
least part of the key transformation of the organization.
● System 2 represents the information channels and bodies that allow the primary
activities in System 1 to communicate between each other and which allow System 3
to monitor and co-ordinate the activities within System 1. Represents the scheduling
function of shared resources to be used by System 1.
● System 3 represents the structures and controls that are put into place to establish
the rules, resources, rights and responsibilities of System 1 and to provide an interface
with Systems 4/5. Represents the big picture view of the processes inside of System
1.
● System 4 – The bodies that make up System 4 are responsible for looking outwards
to the environment to monitor how the organization needs to adapt to remain viable.
● System 5 is responsible for policy decisions within the organization as a whole to
balance demands from different parts of the organization and steer the organization as
a whole.

8. More than 500 of this Telex machines where spreaded around Chile to get "real-time"
bidirectional communication between the public companies in Chiel and the Chilean
experts in the government that where managing/mentoring these companies from
remote.

9. The project Cybersyn was supported by four IBM 360 Computer in the 1970s.

10. The project's ultimate goal was to create a network of computers and communications
equipment that would support the management of the state-run sector of Chile's economy; at
its core would be an operations room where government managers could view important
information about economic processes in real time, formulate plans of action, and transmit
advice and directives to managers at plants and enterprises in the field.[5] However,
consistent with cybernetic principles and the ideals of the Allende government, its designers
aimed to preserve worker and lower-management autonomy instead of implementing a top-
down system of centralized control.
The system used a network of about 500 telex machines located at enterprises throughout the
country and in government offices in Santiago, some of which were connected to a
government-operated mainframe computerthat would receive information on production
operations, feed that information into economic modeling software, and report on variables
(such as raw material supplies) that were outside normal parameters and might require
attention. The project, implemented by a multidisciplinary group of both Chileans and
foreigners, reached an advanced prototype stage, but was interrupted by the 1973 coup d'état.

11. After Pinochet arrived at the power, the project was completely destroyed and
Stafford Beer gave up (probably) the Cybersin project.

12. 2
This is the 2nd Smart City tale.

13. This is a city where some of the rich live in gated communities
while some of the poor in the favelas pirate electricity from the grid.
And where disasters, natural and otherwise, sometimes strike.
Rainstorms can cause deadly landslides. Last year, a historic
streetcar derailed, killing five people. Earlier this year, three
buildings collapsed downtown, killing at least 17.
Rio is also reconstructing major arenas and building a rapid-bus
system ahead of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer
Olympics.
The project cost Rio about $14 million, Mayor Paes said. If it all
works according to plan, it could make Rio a model of data-driven
city management.

14. I.B.M. incorporated its hardware, software, analytics and research.
It created manuals so that the center’s employees could classify
problems into four categories: events, incidents, emergencies and
crises. A loud party, for instance, is an event. People beating up
each other at a party is an incident. A party that becomes a riot is an
emergency. If someone dies in the riot, it’s a crisis. The manuals
also lay out step-by-step procedures for how departments should
handle pressing situations like floods and rockslides.
I.B.M. also installed a virtual operations platform that acts as a
Web-based clearinghouse, integrating information that comes in
via phone, radio, e-mail and text message. When city employees log
on, they can enter information from, say, an accident scene, or see
how many ambulances have been dispatched. They can also analyze
historical information to determine, for instance, where car
accidents tend to occur. In addition, I.B.M. developed a custom
flood forecast system for the city. Mr. Banavar even recommended
that the mayor create the position of chief operating officer to
oversee the operations center, and the mayor agreed.

15. I.B.M’s Smarter Cities unit has it built a citywide system in Rio De Janeiro that
leverages real-time information to anticipate problems, analyze trends, and
coordinate available resources. Integrating data from over 30 agencies
operating in the city, I.B.M’s Operations Center collates data captured by
sensors, video cameras, and GPS devices throughout the city and utilizes an
algorithm to identify patterns and trends. I.B.M has also installed a virtual
operations platform for integrating information that comes in via phone, radio,
e-mail and text message and allows city employees to view real-time
information from an accident scene, or see how many ambulances have been
dispatched to an incident, for example. The new alert system is expected to
drastically reduce the reaction times to emergency situations by using
instantaneous mobile communications, including automated email notifications
and instant messaging, to reach emergency personnel and citizens.
There is nothing quite like it in the world’s other major cities. I.B.M. has created
similar data centers elsewhere for single agencies like police departments. But never
before has it built a citywide system integrating data from some 30 agencies, all under
a single roof.
PREVIOUSLY, I.B.M. developed crime control centers for Madrid and New York City,
along with a traffic congestion fee system for Stockholm. But creating a citywide,

16. interdepartmental system for Rio was a far bigger task. I.B.M. approached the
challenge like a general contractor, managing the overall project while farming out
some of the work. Local companies handled construction and telecommunications.
Cisco provided network infrastructure and the videoconferencing system that links
the operations center to the mayor’s house. The digital screens are from Samsung.

17. As Saskia Sassen points out, there is a further tendency to “make these technologies
invisible, and hence put them in command rather than in dialogue with users.”

18. That remains the Panopticon

20. 3
The 3rd Smart City tale

21. Some of you will remember the Japanese tsunami in 2011.

22. This tsunami finished with the famous Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
disaster.

24. This is an example of the radiation emitted by Fukushima 24h after the disaster.

25. And this is an example of the information that Japanese citizens could access through
a PDF sheet from the government every 24 hours.

26. On the other hand, this became one of the most famous feeds at Cosm / Pachube /
Xively during the Fukushima disaster. A far away from Fukushima geiger detector.

27. Seen that, the hardware japanese hackers began to build open hardware geiger
counters and shared theme among their friends and neighbours. People was sharing
real-time information of the radiation through Pachube. And not only radiation
sensors, but wind speed sensors, rain detectors among dozens of other different
sensors that allow experts to create real-time maps about how were the radiation
clouds moving around Japan and other regions.

28. Even these sensors could be mobile.

29. On one hand we had the PDF sheets from the Japanese government and on the
other hand there were real-time information from hundreds of citizens creating maps
and add-value with this information.

30. 4
The 4th Smart City tale

31. This is a picture of Wall Street in New York city a hundred years ago.

32. This is a picture of Wall Street nowadays.

33. Nowadays the trend at Wall Street is called high trading frecuency.

34. The famous Hotel Carrier from New York is at 60 Hudson Street and is full of
computers connected directly with Wall Street. This fiber is the fastest way to get
connected with the Wall Street Arena, that means that is the best place to have all the
High Trading Frecuency computers.
[http://www.carrierhotels.com/news/September2001/60hudson.shtml]

35. May 6, 2010 Flash Crash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Flash_Crash#cite_note-phillips-5-11-10-1

36. 30. Latent in the ideology
underwriting the smart city is
the notion that there is one
universal and transcendently
correct solution to each
identified individual or collective
human need, and that this
solution can be arrived at
algorithmically.
http://speedbird.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/the-city-is-here-for-you-to-use-100-easy-pieces/
As Adam Greenfield depicted in a latest blog post, there is an idea of controlling
everything with algorithms.

37. 5
The last Smart City tale

38. The Computer of the 21st Century, Mark Weiser, 1991
In the 80s and 90s Mark Weiser from the XEROX Park was doing research on the
next generation of computing. He created the ubiquitous computing term in his article
The Computer of the 21st Century.

39. EveryWare, Adam Greenfield, 2006
Adam Greenfield wrote the book Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous
Computing in 2006 dechipering the future of public spaces and objects as a software.
This book allows to understand the future of the city and the urban computing as a
topic.

40. The street as platform, Dan Hill, Feb 2008
In 2008 Dan Hill wrote an awesome post on his blog explaining the possibility to
convert any street of our city as a connected street using the available data in the
Internet, such as, social networks, data from the governments, sensors, etc. This
collection of use cases just make aware to the citizens and developers that the
ubiquitous and urban computing was even more closer and available for everyone.

41. The Carlo Ratti talks about Smart Cities he creates an analogy between the Formula
1 twenty years ago and now. He describes and scenario where sensors and actuators
with real-time accessible information by governments and citizens allows the create of
new city paradigm.

42. 99. The city is not a finite state machine, something
with limited configurations. Networked cities,
therefore, must be understood as constituting a
generative grammar that admits to a very large
number of valid permutations. Understood
correctly, any such place will be ripe with potential
for interconnection, recombination and
improvisatory structuration — something capable of
being extended, enhanced and repurposed by its
users as new potentials become available and new
desires arise.
http://speedbird.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/the-city-is-here-for-you-to-use-100-easy-pieces/
Adam Greenfield also wrote about

43. The Allegory of the Cave from Plato is the scenario where we are moving nowadays.
Perceiving the reality though displays such as mobile devices, laptops and TVs we
are living in a Myth Cave.

44. But there is some people still fighting and trying to describe the Open Internet of
Things rights.

45. Challenges

46. ● Transparency and trust of the
political system
● Trust on the public administration
● Crisis of the world finantial system
● Citizen mass participation
● Sense of belonging and identity
● Social inclusion and social integration
● Behaviour transformation
Democracy challenges

47. ● Health and ageing
● Energy sustainability
● Green mobility
● Climate change
● Demographic shifts
● Sustainable water and food supplies
● Housing
● Waste management
● Security
Future cities' challenges

50. Bibliography

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