Plenty of cities are pushing through small-scale projects in order to eventually create a utopian ‘smart city’ – more than 175 cities around the world, according to Navigant Research – and now Cincinnati and Philadelphia are getting behind their own projects for smarter applications and greater Wi-Fi accessibility respectively.
The City of Cincinnati yesterday issued a request for qualifications around the deployment of Wi-Fi, or wireline broadband systems, throughout the city, defining it as ‘smart cities initiative phase one’. The document, available here, defines Cincinnati’s vision of what truly makes a city – its city – ‘smart’.
“To Cincinnati, a ‘smart city’ means one that puts its infrastructure and other assets to work in collaboration with private industry to make ubiquitous, high-speed broadband internet access available and affordable to our residents and businesses,” the document explains. “We see the proliferation of wired and wireless connections as the ignition for economic growth, a means to improve public safety, a tool to power efficient governance, and the bridge to span the digital divide.