Page 67 - U4SSC Simple ways to be smart

4 Understanding simple ways to be smart

Frameworks have been proposed to help cities to understand smart city interventions. These
frameworks enumerate technical architectures, the dimensions of the city, and give criteria for
structures and processes that cities will need to be smart. Such frameworks are readily available
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to cities online.

Here, the report aims to create a simpler framework that highlights just two key aspects of smart
interventions: information and communication. This framework requires no special infrastructure
of cities, nor any particular structures and procedures. Rather it serves to raise awareness among
cities of the key features that make interventions smart and to help cities to evaluate potential
interventions

4.1 Case analysis

In the discipline of Information Systems, it has long been recognized that information and
communications technologies essentially facilitate two things. Firstly, they facilitate the collection,
storage and analysis of data, especially in volumes and at levels of detail that were not possible
in the past. Secondly, they facilitate the communication of information rapidly, conveniently and
across distance. These two characteristics of information and communications technologies can
be seen in the case studies described in this report.

The table below provides a brief analysis of the ten case studies indicating how each of them:

• Collects, stores and analyses data, (either existing or new), and

• Communicates information between stakeholders.

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