As 10 cidades mais inteligentes do mundo/Smart Cities

Publicado em 12/29/2009 por David Afonso

 Singapura

Fonte: http://planbuildmanage.biz/~quintaci/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1203_singapore-smart_400x280.jpg

A revista Forbes elegeu as 10 cidades mais inteligentes:

1. Singapura; 2. Hong Kong; 3. Curitiba; 4. Monterrey; 5. Amesterdão; 6. Seattle; 7. Houston; 8. Charleston; 9. Huntsville; 10. Calgary. Esta lista – talvez demasiado povoada por cidades norte-americanas? – conta apenas com uma cidade europeia, mas em contrapartida assinala Curitiba, no Brasil, como uma das cidades mais inteligentes do mundo. Os critérios seguidos tiveram em conta não apenas o desempenho ambiental das cidades, mas também a sua performance económica, mobilidade e qualidade de vida. A conjugação destes critérios levou à exclusão de megacidades como New York, São Paulo e Tóquio. A conclusão que parece emergir daqui é que as cidades com futuro deverão ser compactas e de relativa pequena dimensão, ambientalmente sustentáveis e economicamente proactivas. Para além da listagem «world’s smartest cities», recomenda-se ainda a leitura de outros artigos paralelos sobre o tema da cidade.

Fonte: http://quintacidade.com/2009/12/29/as-10-cidades-mais-inteligentes-do-mundo/

The World's Smartest Cities

Joel Kotkin, 12.03.09, 06:00 PM EST

Strong infrastructure, attractive economies and savvy urban planning.

 

In Pictures: The World's Smartest Cities

In today's parlance a "smart" city often refers to a place with a "green" sustainable agenda. Yet this narrow definition of intelligence ignores many other factors--notably upward mobility and economic progress--that have characterized successful cities in the past.

The green-only litmus test dictates cities should emulate either places with less-than-dynamic economies, like Portland, Ore., or Honolulu, or one of the rather homogeneous and staid Scandinavian capitals. In contrast, I have determined my "smartest" cities not

These criteria unfortunately exclude mega-cities like New York, Mexico City, Tokyo or Sao Paulo, which suffer from congenital congestion, out-of-control real estate prices and expanding income disparities--symptoms of what urban historian Lewis Mumford described as "megalopolitan elephantiasis."

Instead, today's "smart" cities tend to be smaller, compact and more efficient: places like Amsterdam; Seattle; Singapore; Curitiba, Brazil; and Monterrey, Mexico. This is not an entirely new notion: Between the 14th and 18th centuries, modest-sized cities like Venice, Italy; Antwerp, Belgium; and Amsterdam nurtured modern capitalism and created canals and vibrant urban quarters that remain wonders even today.

In the Pacific-centric modern era, smart commercial cities are increasingly found outside Europe. Indeed, the most likely 21st-century successor to 15th-century Venice is Singapore, a commercially minded island nation that, like its forebear, is run by an often enlightened authoritarian regime.

 […]

With a population of 3.5 million, Curitiba demonstrates how to achieve the evolving Brazilian dream without the mass violence, transportation dysfunction and ubiquitous grinding poverty that plague many other Latin American metro areas. The city's program of building "lighthouses"--essentially electronic libraries--for poorer residents has become a model for developing cities world wide. These are among the reasons Reader's Digest recently named Curitiba the best place to live in Brazil.

Fonte: http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/infrastructure-economy-urban-opinions-columnists-smart-cities-09-joel-kotkin.html