Comments on: People in the city http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2009/07/people-in-the-city.html Instrumented. Interconnected. Intelligent. Wed, 23 May 2012 03:26:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: White House aims to create a “national urban policy agenda” | A Smarter Planet http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2009/07/people-in-the-city.html#comment-5858 White House aims to create a “national urban policy agenda” | A Smarter Planet Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:23:06 +0000 http://asmarterplanet.com/?p=1641#comment-5858 [...] the findings and ideas with the conversations we heard at the Berlin Smarter Cities summit and the recently published report from IBM’s Institute of Business Value, "A vision of smarter [...] [...] the findings and ideas with the conversations we heard at the Berlin Smarter Cities summit and the recently published report from IBM’s Institute of Business Value, "A vision of smarter [...]

]]> By: Susanne Dirks http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2009/07/people-in-the-city.html#comment-5505 Susanne Dirks Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:57:38 +0000 http://asmarterplanet.com/?p=1641#comment-5505 Hi Silvia, I think you raise a very interesting point and I fully agree that a good ecological footprint is one key ingredient to happiness. This is why the focus in our paper (and indeed implicitly the focus of Smarter Planet) is about 'sustainable' prosperity, i.e. achieving prosperity with minimum negative impact on the environment, or put differently, by minimising pollution and maximising resource utilisation via the use of instrumented, interconnected, intelligent technologies. This should, however, not mean going back to a lower developmental stage, as the HPI index seems to imply by the fact that the top 42 countries are all developing countries. The index also shows that life expectation and life satisfaction is generally higher in the middle tier of the HPI index countries,i.e. largely developed countries ... many of which, I agree, as the index shows, need to urgently improve their ecological footprint in order to rank higher in terms of an overall 'Happy Planet' scenario. This is a lesson especially important to countries like the US and Luxembourg, where the index shows that even a high life expectancy and a high life satisfaction can no longer compensate for their particularly high ecological footprint. Hi Silvia, I think you raise a very interesting point and I fully agree that a good ecological footprint is one key ingredient to happiness. This is why the focus in our paper (and indeed implicitly the focus of Smarter Planet) is about ‘sustainable’ prosperity, i.e. achieving prosperity with minimum negative impact on the environment, or put differently, by minimising pollution and maximising resource utilisation via the use of instrumented, interconnected, intelligent technologies. This should, however, not mean going back to a lower developmental stage, as the HPI index seems to imply by the fact that the top 42 countries are all developing countries. The index also shows that life expectation and life satisfaction is generally higher in the middle tier of the HPI index countries,i.e. largely developed countries … many of which, I agree, as the index shows, need to urgently improve their ecological footprint in order to rank higher in terms of an overall ‘Happy Planet’ scenario. This is a lesson especially important to countries like the US and Luxembourg, where the index shows that even a high life expectancy and a high life satisfaction can no longer compensate for their particularly high ecological footprint.

]]> By: Silvia http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2009/07/people-in-the-city.html#comment-5500 Silvia Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:03:14 +0000 http://asmarterplanet.com/?p=1641#comment-5500 nice post. however although I agree that a Smart City influences the quality of our life I don't agree that this makes us happier. By checking this study I mentioned here http://happymaking4u.blogspot.com/2009/07/and-happiest-nation-in-world-is.html I found out that, again, happy people are not those living in the cities with the best infrastructure or access to the most modern health system, but those living in good ecological environment and having a high life expectancy. Of course given the fact that we can't all move or pick a new place to live we must however make our cities smarter.But maybe we need to start by doing exactly this: rethinking what we assumed that would make people happier and giving it a more cultural, nature friendly edge. nice post. however although I agree that a Smart City influences the quality of our life I don’t agree that this makes us happier. By checking this study I mentioned here http://happymaking4u.blogspot.com/2009/07/and-happiest-nation-in-world-is.html I found out that, again, happy people are not those living in the cities with the best infrastructure or access to the most modern health system, but those living in good ecological environment and having a high life expectancy.

Of course given the fact that we can’t all move or pick a new place to live we must however make our cities smarter.But maybe we need to start by doing exactly this: rethinking what we assumed that would make people happier and giving it a more cultural, nature friendly edge.

]]> By: petra http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2009/07/people-in-the-city.html#comment-5468 petra Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:49:18 +0000 http://asmarterplanet.com/?p=1641#comment-5468 Speaking of smart cities and people living in them... My colleague showed me this article from BusinessWeek: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2009/gb2009072_088382.htm The idea of turning on streetlights with your cell phone would not work in big cities, but it can definitely save energy and cut costs in small towns. Speaking of smart cities and people living in them… My colleague showed me this article from BusinessWeek:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2009/gb2009072_088382.htm

The idea of turning on streetlights with your cell phone would not work in big cities, but it can definitely save energy and cut costs in small towns.

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