Exploring the concepts of Smart Cities An empirical study of Smart City Indore

Abstract

The century has seen a lot of large scale changes; both constructive and destructive. On one side where people moved from slums to concrete dwellings as a result of urbanization and industrial growth, the other side experienced the thwart of population hike and the problems associated with it. And specifically if our country India is to be taken in consideration, the changes had an even more pronounced effect. With each coming day population increased in leaps and bounds while the resources kept getting scarcer at the same time. And this was the major concern when the society failed to address the demands of this increased human toll. Their very basic needs of food, clothes and housing were not even getting fulfilled. And what added on to it was the rapid migration from the rural background to the towns and cities in the search of employment and development. Cities kept getting congested with a sharp struggle for available resources. The problem now has got even more acute and this is the time when a solution needs to be worked out. One such concept that can come to the society’s rescue is that of ‘Smart Cities’. These are cities that are very different from the normal ones and are much more efficient too. They are integrated with the cutting edge technology that makes them more intelligent in their ways of resource handling and providing its users a quality lifestyle. This work is an exploratory attempt to have a keen insight into the concept of Smart Cities, its components, the features and challenges that it has to imbibe and fight through in context of India and a case study of the Smart City Proposal for Indore City.