Smart cities are expected to streamline communications, improve the lives of citizens, and save energy and money. This ebook offers a comprehensive look at how and where smart city technologies are working—and what the future holds.

From the ebook:

More than three-quarters of the earth’s population lives in cities. Smart technologies are quickly emerging to transform how people work and live. There are both new opportunities and new risks in smart cities.

A recent report from the EastWest Institute (EWI), Smart and Safe: Risk Reduction in Tomorrow’s Cities, gives direction to urban leaders who want to reduce risks and create more resilient cities. The report covers four main areas: cybersecurity, cyber resilience, privacy, and data protection and collaboration and coordination in governance. Unisys, Microsoft, Huawei Technologies, and NXP Semiconductors provided input.

“The rapid evolution of smart cities is both exciting and daunting due to the incredible pace of technological change and adoption,” said Bruce McConnell, EWI global vice president and co-author of the report. “This guide was developed to recognize and support all key stakeholders involved—municipalities, governments, urban planners, businesses, and community leaders—to help them safeguard smart cities for the future.”

The IDC defines smart city development as the use of smart initiatives combined to leverage technology investments across an entire city, with common platforms increasing efficiency, data being shared across systems, and IT investments tied to smart missions. Meanwhile, the United Nations defines a smart and sustainable city as an innovative city that uses information and communications technologies and other means to improve quality of life, efficiency of urban operation, and services and competitiveness.

All this technology means that cities are more vulnerable, although there are ways to manage that risk. Smart cities needs to focus on scale and speed of devices, the interconnection of networks, and being willing to adopt new technologies, according to the report.