Dear Himanshu,

Are you sure that  "Most of the developing nation has urbanization level in the range of 25-50% of their total area"?

Regards

yes, ..who contributes most to the Green House Gas Emissions...

China--54.7 (22% GHG emission), India -- 31.2 (6% GHG emission), Indonesia-50.7 (2% GHG emission), Bangladesh--28.4 (1% GHG emission)

Dear Miguel: there are many studies which have calculated the urbanization level in most of the developing countries to be less than 50%..... even as low as 20%. though the definition of urbanization varies from country to country.

Himanshu I agree with you.... Smart Villages can be a better option for controlling the deterioration of the environment and climate change especially in developing and under developed countries as one of the major cause of urban growth or urbanization is migration of people from rural to urban areas for better job and employment prospects and better facilities, as can be observed especially over last two decades in India.

So if we can focus on villages and rural areas and develop can be so called "Smart Villages" we could achieve the target of reduction in GHG emmission.

It is primarily smart cities but the focus should also be on creation of smart villages especially in developing countries of Asia and Africa. This is quite important with the rising population and potential of these villages to transform into cities of the future. The word 'smart' should entail creation of a more efficient institutional and governance structures that will strive towards self sustainability; both economic as well as energy and resource production and consumption. Such bottom-up model should be integrated with the existing regional agglomerates. This will mean that the environmental as well as the carbon costs involved in making transition from a semi-rural to urbanised economy (with the project population rise and urbanisation) are offset/minimised.

This is a very captivating subject indeed.  I want begin by saying that urbanization is a inevitable phenomenon and it is in fact a sign of a matured economy. But it is crucial how the phenomenon is planned and managed. The cities in developing world lack long term strategic planning and insta management skills. Now when the cities lack basic framework for planning and management and struggling with struggling with infrastructure provision and high concentration of poverty and slums, thinking of smart cities does not seem to be a realistic goal. Smart cities in Europe and America are initiated to enhance competitiveness when they already have cities with high quality infrastructure and huge public finance. Developing countries rather than being obsessed with the dream of smart cities should focus on settling the basic fundamentals first. 

The second point seemed to me that come out from your question is that smart and sustainable villages may be an option for governments to ponder upon. Well this is already a tried and tested formula with no results. We should remember Late Former Indian President Sir Abdul Kalam's theory about PURA (Provision of urban amenities in rural areas) which in fact was implemented as a scheme by central government of India. The scheme got a revised name in Gujarat as RURBAN. These ideas and schemes banked on old school Gandhian philosophy of self sufficient villages with same level of infrastructure as urban areas enjoy. But it did not make inroads as the cost of developing physical infrastructure in low density rural areas were too high and the village Panchayets have scanty revenues to manage such infrastructure even if they are developed by state or federal funding.

Now the last but not the least emphasis of your note seems to be on climate change and smart cities/smart villages. I am presently pursuing PhD with concentration on Smart Cities and Society and let me tell you as far as my little understanding goes existing literature and research till date has not quite established the link between smart cities/villages and climate change neutralization. Any society with less resource utilization and sustainable behavioral practices can achieve lower carbon footprint and thus could aid to minimise greenhouse emissions and climate change. If you want to label such society.village/city as smart then you are welcome. But the key point is the focus of India's smart cities mission is on developing high quality infrastructure and marketing them as global cities which has absolutely no association with climate change.

This is a very captivating subject indeed.  I want begin by saying that urbanization is a inevitable phenomenon and it is in fact a sign of a matured economy. But it is crucial how the phenomenon is planned and managed. The cities in developing world lack long term strategic planning and insta management skills. Now when the cities lack basic framework for planning and management and struggling with struggling with infrastructure provision and high concentration of poverty and slums, thinking of smart cities does not seem to be a realistic goal. Smart cities in Europe and America are initiated to enhance competitiveness when they already have cities with high quality infrastructure and huge public finance. Developing countries rather than being obsessed with the dream of smart cities should focus on settling the basic fundamentals first. 

The second point seemed to me that come out from your question is that smart and sustainable villages may be an option for governments to ponder upon. Well this is already a tried and tested formula with no results. We should remember Late Former Indian President Sir Abdul Kalam's theory about PURA (Provision of urban amenities in rural areas) which in fact was implemented as a scheme by central government of India. The scheme got a revised name in Gujarat as RURBAN. These ideas and schemes banked on old school Gandhian philosophy of self sufficient villages with same level of infrastructure as urban areas enjoy. But it did not make inroads as the cost of developing physical infrastructure in low density rural areas were too high and the village Panchayets have scanty revenues to manage such infrastructure even if they are developed by state or federal funding.

Now the last but not the least emphasis of your note seems to be on climate change and smart cities/smart villages. I am presently pursuing PhD with concentration on Smart Cities and Society and let me tell you as far as my little understanding goes existing literature and research till date has not quite established the link between smart cities/villages and climate change neutralization. Any society with less resource utilization and sustainable behavioral practices can achieve lower carbon footprint and thus could aid to minimise greenhouse emissions and climate change. If you want to label such society.village/city as smart then you are welcome. But the key point is the focus of India's smart cities mission is on developing high quality infrastructure and marketing them as global cities which has absolutely no association with climate change.

Dear Himanshu: 

Your approach is interesting and contingent, but I think that is very difficult to answer outright, because it pretends to link the current discussion of smart cities and their possible role in finding solutions to the problem of climate change.

Understanding what really defines a city or village as Smart. I think regardless of size, if it comes to cities or villages, the question is to find specific solutions for each scale work, a territorial scale, urban scale, even at the level of each building or public space and also specifically for each territorial or geographical reality. In any case I recommend you the paper of Professor Rudolf Giffinger, fronm TU Wien, Smart cities. Ranking of European medium-sized cities, (http://www.smart-cities.eu/download/smart_cities_final_report.pdf), because in this is performed an approach to the steps that make a city truly Smart.

Por otra parte, respecto de la pregunta específica si son las villas inteligentes una solución a los problemas del cambio climático, creo que tampoco se trata de soluciones globales, sino de soluciones puntuales específicas para las ciudades-villas interiores, o de costa o de montaña. I do not know the project developed in India, but I have been participating in a European project, in the framework of the Leonardo Lifelong Learning Programme; Competences for sustainable city development: Qualification scheme for Climate Adaptation in Construction, Architecture and Planning, CLIM-CAP (http://www.climcap.eu/en), with partners of United Kingdom, Spain, Hungary, Germany and Netherlands and as a result in our respective pilot courses we identify that each reality is different, and that is really difficult find global solutions to plan and deliver adaptation into the built environment of urban areas.

Good luck in your research.

Best regards.

Rolando.

THANK YOU EVERYONE...for your valuable comments and recommendations....

I feel much more close to those RG people which believe than the most smart city is the one wich has no technology at all, where for example people talk face to face, gather around a cofee, walk or bike short distances to their workplaces, rather than those hypertechnificated communities. 

I know that this is not a really scientific opinion other than just an old man point of view. May be we all must research on this. 

So I do really appreciate such a clear issues as the one proposed herre, which anyway will make us to think where are we going.

thank you Mr. Placido for your comment, I dont think yours is an old man point of view, rather its a clear view. If we would have thought like you may be we would not have needed these concepts at all. You are correct that smart city doesn't really require to be equipped with technology rather if it becomes like you stated a city of short distance. But I think with the current situation we may require to equip cities with smart solutions as we have degraded the quality of life. 

On the other hand we could save villages or rural settlements which are on the verge of degradation or getting urbanized. A village character is or was where people talk face to face, gather around for coffee, walk or bike short distances for their workplaces. We are losing it in the name of development and urbanization.

We need to look back, what we are losing in the name of development. Is it really worth? or could we make an alternative sustainable controlled development and still retain the identity of villages.

Mr. Placido's response to Himanshu's query & Himanshu's reaction are very interesting & so are his comment about what we are losing in the name of development. but one wonders if cities are really unnecessary? History tells us that they have been indispensable for the Development of culture. It is only when they developed  uncontrollably, at an  unmanageable pace  & at the cost of villages that problems started occurring. Does not the solution lie in letting the cities develop without negatively affecting the growth of surrounding settlements? Besides, cities are considered the growth engines of economy & can provide employment to a lot of people in the informal sector. They can also provide boost to the tertiary sector of economy. At the same time, care should be taken that they do not eat up surrounding agricultural land. Perhaps this is an utopian dream but worth striving for.

SalilBhatt

Mr. Placido's response to Himanshu's query & Himanshu's reaction are very interesting & so are his comment about what we are losing in the name of development. but one wonders if cities are really unnecessary? History tells us that they have been indispensable for the Development of culture. It is only when they developed  uncontrollably, at an  unmanageable pace  & at the cost of villages that problems started occurring. Does not the solution lie in letting the cities develop without negatively affecting the growth of surrounding settlements? Besides, cities are considered the growth engines of economy & can provide employment to a lot of people in the informal sector. They can also provide boost to the tertiary sector of economy. At the same time, care should be taken that they do not eat up surrounding agricultural land. Perhaps this is an utopian dream but worth striving for.

SalilBhatt

Mr. Placido's response to Himanshu's query & Himanshu's reaction are very interesting & so are his comment about what we are losing in the name of development. but one wonders if cities are really unnecessary? History tells us that they have been indispensable for the Development of culture. It is only when they developed  uncontrollably, at an  unmanageable pace  & at the cost of villages that problems started occurring. Does not the solution lie in letting the cities develop without negatively affecting the growth of surrounding settlements? Besides, cities are considered the growth engines of economy & can provide employment to a lot of people in the informal sector. They can also provide boost to the tertiary sector of economy. At the same time, care should be taken that they do not eat up surrounding agricultural land. Perhaps this is an utopian dream but worth striving for.

SalilBhatt

Mr. Placido's response to Himanshu's query & Himanshu's reaction are very interesting & so are his comment about what we are losing in the name of development. but one wonders if cities are really unnecessary? History tells us that they have been indispensable for the Development of culture. It is only when they developed  uncontrollably, at an  unmanageable pace  & at the cost of villages that problems started occurring. Does not the solution lie in letting the cities develop without negatively affecting the growth of surrounding settlements? Besides, cities are considered the growth engines of economy & can provide employment to a lot of people in the informal sector. They can also provide boost to the tertiary sector of economy. At the same time, care should be taken that they do not eat up surrounding agricultural land. Perhaps this is an utopian dream but worth striving for.

SalilBhatt

Mr. Placido's response to Himanshu's query & Himanshu's reaction are very interesting & so are his comment about what we are losing in the name of development. but one wonders if cities are really unnecessary? History tells us that they have been indispensable for the Development of culture. It is only when they developed  uncontrollably, at an  unmanageable pace  & at the cost of villages that problems started occurring. Does not the solution lie in letting the cities develop without negatively affecting the growth of surrounding settlements? Besides, cities are considered the growth engines of economy & can provide employment to a lot of people in the informal sector. They can also provide boost to the tertiary sector of economy. At the same time, care should be taken that they do not eat up surrounding agricultural land. Perhaps this is an utopian dream but worth striving for.

SalilBhatt

Behind the specific discussion about smartness, I believe there is a wider discussion that goes more or less unadressed: urbanization is widely seen as an inescapable future, and therefore most scientific and policy efforts busy with sustainability are focusing on sustainable cities. These have become the new mantra. Various studies show that life in Western cities is more sustainable than suburban life. But these do not question the massive impact of the urban lifestyle itself in contrast to more rural, sufficiency-focused ways of life.

Does anyone in this thread know of academic references backing the argument that (smart or not) urbanization itself is a problem for sustainability? That urbanization should be slowed down? stopped? reversed?

Hi Himanshu,

I have been bringing the same question in many discussions around sustainable agriculture, rural development, SDGs and smart cities. I believe, we cannot see rural and urban systems as separate entities, in-fact they are interdependent through multiple complex relationships. I understand for research we often need to focus on one system at a time, but in reality, rural and urban spaces not only share resources but also compete for them (e.g. water, land, human labor). The air pollution generated in cities cause agricultural damages in villages and peri-urban regions, villages and peri-urban areas generate food to be supplied to cities hence the system as a whole has to be smart. Unless we aim towards smart villages (from 'smart' I understand resource efficient rural activities including smart agriculture, and public assess to all necessary facilities for human well being and satisfaction of high standard) and smart cities together combined with smart provisions of resource flow and management between the two spaces, the benefits of 'only smart cities' might not be sustainable. Its another discussion how we define the smart city and smart village, and this will vary from region to region but as far as I think, it relates to the function of these spaces. As far as I am aware, there are several models under development that focus on the functioning of cities, not so much on rural spaces and the two combined.

Hi Himanshu,

You have indeed raised an interesting question herein. I believe smarter approach would be to invest (brain, time, energy, money etc.) in making villages and cities working intact instead of developing smart cities or smart villages. We need to think considering nothing (no system/ sector/ entity) is in isolation and than decide/act/respond accordingly. I very much agree with what Divya mam mentioned in her answer.

A very good question from Himanshu Raj. I like Divya Pandey's approach. We strive to develop smart cities, but we must not forget about the development of rural areas. Rural areas and related agricultural activity should be an important element in the regional and local development (including tle development of low carbon economy). This is due to the share of agriculture in the total GHG emission, as well as the high potential of rural areas in terms of use their resources to increase C sequestration, reduce GHG emissions and climate change mitigation, and also use of agricultural activity to development of renewable energy. With regard to rural areas, the concept of sustainable development and SDGs are particularly important because of the need for taking into account the priority role of the natural environment in the implementation of the production function and the strategic objectives of the development of these areas.

Best regards

Pawel

It pleases me to inform you that the book 'The Smart Village Concept. Examples from Poland' has been published. The PDF version can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360963908_CONCEPT_THE_SMART_VILLAGE_EXAMPLES_FROM_POLAND I encourage you to take a look! Best, Sławek