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Special Report: GBBC - The Future of Urban Living Part I: The Rise of “Smart Cities” (gbbcouncil.org)
GBBC Open Source Ideas:


The Future of Urban Living
Part I:

The Rise of “Smart Cities”

17 March 2020

Washington DC,
United States

IntroductionUrban populations around the world are growing, putting new and unexpected strains on urban environments and governments. The United Nations estimates that 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas; this is projected to increase to 68 percent by 2050, adding about 2.5 billion people to urban areas.


i.


In the face of this growth and pressing issues surrounding transportation, water management, energy, waste management, government service delivery, and much more, some cities are turning to technology with the goal of becoming “smart cities.” According to McKinsey, the smart city industry will be a $400 billion market in 2020.

ii.


If you ask people to define a “smart city,” you will likely receive a range of answers: from “I don’t know” to “cities where streets expand and contract based on traffic patterns,” or “cities where noise and light pollution iseliminated to improve the psychological wellbeing of inhabitants.” While there is no set definition of a “smart city,” this term generally refers to urban environments in which technologies, especially Internet of Things (IoT) and broadband, are used to improve the lives of citizens.

While splashier and more visible smart city innovations, such as applications that 
identify and alert users to open parking spaces, receive the bulk of media attention, there are many other “background ” innovations that can lead to significant quality of life improvements for citizens; this is where blockchain technology fits in. It should be noted that blockchain and IoT are an effective and popular technology pairing.

A recent Gartner survey found that 
75 percent of IoT adopters “in the U.S. have already adopted blockchain or are planning to adopt it by the end of 2020. Among the blockchain adopters, 86 percent are implementing the two technologies together in various projects.”

iii.


Blockchain technology is distributed, transparent, and highly secure, three traits that can prove invaluable for certain smart city innovations. With blockchain’s massive potential in this area in mind, the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) and respective collaborators conducted a survey of individuals in New York City, Los Angeles, Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana), and the United Kingdom regarding opportunities and roadblocks for blockchain implementation.

For this survey, questions were written by the GBBC team with the aim of understanding how individuals in the blockchain space 
view the implementation of blockchain technology for smart cities.

To disseminate the survey, the GBBC partnered with trusted local groups and institutions 
focused on blockchain technology in each of the target cities. Partner organizations, including NYC Blockchain Center, Los Angeles Blockchain Lab, Citigate Dewe Rogerson, and Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), then agreed to share the survey with their respective....



Download the full report here: https://gbbcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Future-of-Urban-Living_Part-I_Smart-Cities-.pdfhttps://gbbcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Future-of-Urban-Living_Part-I_Smart-Cities-.pdfth their respective....

Download the full report here: 

https://gbbcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Future-of-Urban-Living_Part-I_Smart-Cities-.pdf

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    Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst There is a lot of literature on the issue of "smart cities", related with 4th IR techs like the blockchain. The world after this pandemic offers us also new reflections on how we want these smart cities to develop. We need smart cities to help developing new attitudes, new approaches and ways of living in a healthy, smarter urban society. Good reading.