【3】A smart city in China--Zhenjiang.

What is a smart city?

“Smart City” is a slippery term applied to everything from urban design to higher education policy. But the most accepted definition is the use of information technology to attack urban problems. Smart city systems are managing traffic, stabilizing electric grids, allocating and coordinating emergency services, and providing more city information to people and managers than has ever been available before.

Zhenjiang--A smart city in China

In this historic Yangtze River city near Suzhou, you can check the arrival time of the next bus, make an appointment at a city hospital, and find parking spaces or public bicycles—all from your smartphone.

Zhenjiang city buses continuously report their position and operating characteristics to a “smart dispatch” control center, helping operators improve scheduling efficiency and reducing fuel use and emissions. In a pilot project, some buses are now also sporting fast 4G wireless internet for riders. According to the city, half a million riders a day are checking bus arrival times using smartphone apps, and the city is saving 6,700 tons of carbon dioxide and ¥17 million ($2.7 million) in fuel costs per year.

For Chinese leaders, smart city technology looks like a win-win. For several decades, 20 million peasants a year have moved from the countryside to urban factories and construction sites, fueling China’s legendary economic rise. This immense migration is far from reaching an end:  China is currently only half urban, less than other mid-level developing countries such as Malaysia (73 percent urban) or developed nations like the United States (80 percent), and the Chinese government is counting on further urbanization to support economic development. What is now worrying Beijing is whether cities can support an additional 100 million residents. Pollution, housing affordability, and traffic congestion are already taking a heavy toll, so policy-makers are looking urgently for ways to let cities continue to offer migrants a better life. At the same time, economic planners are pushing hard to transform China from the world’s export factory to a self-sufficient modern service economy, and smart city technology looks like a good investment.