Smart Cities: How do we Build the Cities of Tomorrow: Hugh Green at TEDxEmory

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[@mikfermi6545]

Good point, in real life we just need to win over corruption and insane greed of few people, common sense and creativity will provide new solutions.

[@johnkim7802]

There definitely has been an exponential growth in urbanization for the past two centuries along with the most systematically redefining events happening within urban areas. We've also seen the formation of suburban areas which in some areas are almost a sort of hybrid between cities and rural areas. But nearly no one lives in purely rural form disconnected from many areas anymore. The clustering of massive amounts of people does have some inefficiencies and unintended consequences even though the benefits far outweigh the negatives for most cities. Cities should definitely be getting greener, more environmentally friendly, and more personal. But the way that some of these smart cities are being planned frightens me as the changes are dictatorial and inflexible. It's given the government too much surveillance powers, too much contracting rights for public projects, too much zoning restrictive abilities, etc. A truly smart city should be one decentralized where people can initiate change and good ideas are adopted, not one where good ideas are forced upon and implemented with tremendous long term inefficiency.

[@atulVkota]

V'well said John ..... cud'n't've agreed for more at'all, I'm of same opinion as u, in name of SmartCities (incl' in India) National-HighCommands r doing nothing but WhiteWashing, misleading-citizens & being in TopNational-PowerPositions, they r primarily accumulating/siphoning funds, off'-NationalTreasuries&Banks, extracting-it-all for their own PoliticalOutfits&Parties&GO'NGOs. . . . . so pl' mail me ur e'mail John, I wish to b communicating with u, cheers !

[@roksraka9241]

As a student of architecture, I am very passionate about such topics...but this was a bad TED talk! I don't care if my streets have "F1 sensors" in them. He mentioned video conferencing as something revolutionary, even though we've had Skype for 13 years. What we should really focus on are urban problems which can't be solved with an app! Also, you can't entrust the design of cities to everyone with a smartphone - that's what architects, urban planners and engineers are for!

[@LittleOrla]

Bye-bye beautiful, soul-filled architecture. We love you but must make room for boxes designed by AI. These cities will be completely soulless. They'll make us soulless. We will die there.

[@fudge6509]

@@LittleOrla 1984 has arrived

[@LittleOrla]

@@fudge6509 True. Resistance is futile. Resist anyway. ☺

[@shashankarya1965]

Abandoned buildings can give birth to micro level of jungles in any locality which can give birth to a whole new environment.

[@LittleOrla]

Dear God, go look at an image of this magnificent Masdar. From above it looks like a mother-board.

[@nihar-2845]

Modi is trying to develop 100 smart cities in India and soon world will face a shining smart India.

[@arnogermond5473]

+Nihar Ranjan Das Unfortunately, after checking the videos and planned design... it's look poorly designed and awful.

[@nihar-2845]

Arno Germond BJP governed states should actively try for development of sample smart cities and it will silence the congress and other detractors forever.No design,actual smart city before the opposition like a tight slap.

[@arnogermond5473]

True.

[@atulVkota]

instead of that - lets make it simple & lets take the burden off BJP (IndianRight-now) & Congress (IndianLeft-now) as they both r same side of OneCoin . . . . so best is to give entire responsibility of completing-successfuly the task of all Smart-indian-Cities, more Justfully-Fairly-Rationally-Meaningfully - hence such a responsibility must be given to www.aamadmiparty.org , isn't it ?

[@mikfermi6545]

Nihar - I really hope so, India need a strong guidance to execute better solutions for your beautiful country and good heart people. All the best

[@shashankarya1965]

floating inverse pyramids can refine sea water to drinkable water.

[@georgiapeach1365]

God help us all. 24/7 monitoring of everyone. All day, all the time. Everything you do will be tracked and logged and shared with the "appropriate" people monitoring every move you make. God please wake up people. Have you seen the movie "Gatica"?

[@k.ganesanganesan6825]

Mortar ... Manufacture from organic.

[@k.ganesanganesan6825]

There is no place for CONCRETE JUNGLE.

[@shrednow]

it is now 2018, and both Songdo and Masdar fell short of their goals...

[@pedrodomingo180]

Hows Australia's approach to getting the people on board? Sinister as fk.

[@marcelmauer5980]

No idea of urban planning, social sciences or the basic fundamentals of governance. Very poor content.

[@RizqiFahma]

No it is not. That's why you need to watch it, because it is important.

[@shashankarya1965]

Green pyramids can make water.

[@0zoneTherapyW0rks]

How smart is exchanging fossil fuel pollution for electrosmog? Do we really want to live in Alexaworld? Powering the electrical grid down worldwide as a form of control? Powering down our cars, our heat, our phones, etc. as a form of control? Sterility as a form of control?

[@0zoneTherapyW0rks]

Charter cities were attempted in Honduras but it failed. The nation-state is important because sovereign nations have the authority to issue their own currency. When this is removed, you have the financial disaster of the EU nations, you have Wall St government that destroyed the middle class, suppressed wages to force people to live on credit.

[@jeffkeith1198]

изменение климата, the climate has changed in deed and in fact; just ask Hillary Clinton.

[@0zoneTherapyW0rks]

We've had 45 years of rule by finance sector. We KNOW that private sector governance is malicious and dysfunctional. We don't need a 7th pro-business, anti nation-state president who wants to shut down government permanently to end democracy, rights, environmental protections, safety inspections, freedom to roam, home and car ownership, citizenship. To the libertarians who created and still support neoliberalism, (even though it's been thoroughly discredited as an economic policy since the 2008 crash), "freedom" means ECONOMIC freedom only. They prefer privately owned "charter cities" to replace nations. Is this what smart cities are as well? "In a libertarian society, there is no commons or public space. There are property lines, not borders. When it comes to real property and physical movement across such real property, there are owners, guests, licensees, business invitees and trespassers - not legal and illegal immigrants.” ~ Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute

[@0zoneTherapyW0rks]

Read Patrick Wood's book Technocracy Rising. This "Revolt of the Elites" (great book by Christopher Lasch) has set the agenda which has forged the incremental erosion of democracy to this day. The ultimate goal is global corporate governance. The vast NSA surveillance of all citizens was also outlined in Zbigniew Brzezinski's book, Between Two Ages, 1970: “The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

[@joelvancranenbroeck]

That is really the most stupid presentation I have ever seen here in TED ! How the speaker can talk about SONGDo in South Korea like that ? It's 1984 by George Orwell and ... indeed in South Korea they are really embarrassing to recognize that suicide increased much here that in other city. Narrow streets to get sun shade is what has been done largely before ... I am sorry but the speaker should get a blaming note. Good talker but really nothing in the content.

[@exposeagenda2134]

joel van cranenbroeck It is all Agenda 21 propaganda.

[@claudiuceia1547]

+joel van cranenbroeck High suicide rates are not an indication of a bad city / sad city. Take Finland for example. Finland is one of the happiest countries in the world, but suicide rates are very high compared to others. Some researches have said that the feeling of inadequacy which is the cause for many suicides is actually magnified when seemingly everyone around you is happy and lives a dream life.

[@johnkim7802]

+joel van cranenbroeck You are most certainly correct that such is the case with a lot of these smart cities. They contribute to people becoming less autonomous and independent along with infringing their privacy rights. These cities may additionally centralize communication systems, force burdensome regulations, massively spend on public projects, etc. And such isn't about smarter cities but power grabs which either originate from or lead to more corruption.

[@joelvancranenbroeck]

+Claudiu Ceia that has been personally reported to me by the vice mayor of Seoul ! It's an indicator for South Korea at least. Now it has been one year from my comment and hope you can see what is happening? Nothing ... All applications that could help city managers were developped 20'years ago and named GIS. Smart City is the marketing gimmick from IBM and CISCO. Again here at that presentation the speaker is totally mis-using the case of Songdo. And now we do know that the global warming is caused by the sun and not by any other human activities...

[@skamilin]

+joel van cranenbroeck Not even a good talker though

[@citygalmelanieproductions1431]

TedX the psychopaths of today