Garfield Hunter is a Chinese Government Scholar (2013-2017) and currently a Ph.D. Student at the Tongji University in Shanghai, China in the Department of Urban and Rural Planning. His research seeks to mainstream urban planning considerations for integrating sustainable energy technologies in the built environment, as well as, exploring urban development strategies such as smart cities deployment and financing. At present (2015-2016), Garfield is on a one year Visiting PhD Research Fellowship at the European Research Academy (EURAC), Institute of Renewable Energy- Italy. He completed the Masters Degree in Planning, specializing in Environmental Planning at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India and also the Bachelors of Science Degree at the University of Technology, Jamaica in Urban and Regional Planning. He has garnered industry experience, working in Kingston, Jamaica as the Environmental Manager at the Norman Manley International Airport between 2010 and 2011, and an Urban and Regional Planner at the Urban Development Corporation between 2011- 2013, spearheading re/development plan for a tourism eco-city. Garfield is an AVID sports enthusiast (especially Track and Field) and manages to attend competitions in his free time. He is currently learning Chinese Mandarin which he believes will be relevant to his professional and personal development in the future.

abstract

Demystifying Smart City Development in Shanghai: Fact or Fallacy?

As the world becomes more urbanized – with 50% of the globe’s population living in just 0.4 percent of the Earth’s surface, and 70% projected by the year 2050 – cities have evolved into one of our most impressive and complex artifacts. The challenges facing the future of the world’s urban metropolitan areas are immense, and at a first glance many even appear to be insurmountable. The 20th and 21st centuries’ unprecedented migration to urban centres from rural areas has placed continuous and increasing pressure upon infrastructure, residential and commercial properties, and social communities (the very definition of which changes as population densities continue to grow).

Although the progression into the “information age” has helped to harness computing resources unthinkable a generation ago, the problems these resources are requested to solve are themselves becoming ever more convoluted. Moreover, as urban sensor technology, digital media and electronic Identification become more prevalent, the sheer scope of data that an urban metropolitan area provides for analysis is both difficult to handle and hard to incorporate into the logistical problems the current century’s computing power is being asked to solve.

Fortunately, efforts are currently underway in China from industry, academia and governments to not only address today’s challenges, but also to help plan for the alleviation of the future problems on the horizon. China’s central government has prioritized the development of smart city technology and projects a key national policy, through the 12th Five-Year Plan. This has resulted in a plethora of urban cities such as Shanghai, trying to retrofit its urban development strategies and infrastructures to incorporate smart cities development planning policies and aspire to become smart. So much so that in 2011 the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information has created a large pilot project of “smart community development”. Shanghai Municipal Government released plan of action for promoting the construction of smart city 2014-2016. It purported that Shanghai will strive to implement intelligence-led "vital Shanghai five-application action", strengthening the information infrastructure, information technology and network security which can introduce 50 key projects.

However, with millions of rural migrants arriving to Shanghai every year and environmental and economic pressures mounting, one vital question remains to be answered, are smart city projects really a solution—or just the latest policy buzzword? To date these systems have mostly been installed independently of each other. But multinational companies, including several from Shanghai, are now in a race to develop and deploy smart city platforms in which disparate systems communicate and share information. 

These efforts are the focus of this presentation, which will seek to examine the components of smart cities in Shanghai, how it is being deployed through planning. The research will also scrutinize smart city implementation through the Shanghai expo held in 2013 and the creation of the Shanghai Pudong New Area, which the latter was commissioned as the Shanghai smart city pilot project area. It is anticipated that this presentation will provide a platform (theoretical base) for further discussing smart strategies about developing smart city, creating smart industrial environment and the application of smart living technology to advance people quality of life and enhance economic and environmental development.