{"id":217983,"date":"2018-01-05T18:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T16:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=217983"},"modified":"2018-01-05T14:44:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T12:44:44","slug":"south-africas-smart-cities-will-likely-have-wi-fi-but-may-not-have-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/technology\/217983\/south-africas-smart-cities-will-likely-have-wi-fi-but-may-not-have-water\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s smart cities will likely have Wi-Fi – but may not have water"},"content":{"rendered":"

Countries around the world are slowly moving towards fully-connected smart cities, but even the most cutting edge technology is likely to run into challenges. This is according to a number of urban experts who were speaking to Reuters<\/a> <\/strong>about the future of smart cities in developing countries such as South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cA 24-hour smart water meter can only be possible if you\u2019re connected to the water system in the first place,\u201d said Ayona Datta, a reader in urban futures at King\u2019s College London.<\/p>\n

She said that while\u00a0technology may be introduced across a city to make transport or water services more efficient, it will likely only work in its richer areas. This is because the idea of giving the same thing to everyone in both middle-class and low-income neighborhoods can be problematic, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIT companies will sell (smart technology) as a package without any kind of customization at a grassroots level,\u201d Datta said.<\/p>\n

“Smart technology installed like this is \u201cgiving the icing on the cake to people who are already connected.\u00a0 In many cases, those who lack access to electricity or the internet cannot benefit from high-tech infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really need to engage with the social context (and) social issues first.”<\/p>\n

Nancy Odendaal, an associate professor of urban planning at the University of Cape Town agreed with Datta, and said that a\u00a0number of smart city projects were essentially just real estate projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the African continent this becomes particularly poignant as it is seen as the last frontier for property speculation and development,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to Odendaal most of Africa’s\u00a0 smart cities tend to be \u201ctop-down\u201d projects to create satellite cities – like\u00a0Konza Technopolis\u00a0in Kenya and Eko Atlantic City in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

Dubbed \u201cAfrica\u2019s Dubai\u201d, Eko Atlantic is being built on Victoria Island next to Lagos. Developers say it will become a new financial headquarters for Nigeria\u00a0as well as solving chronic housing shortages in Lagos. However detractors have argued\u00a0that shiny urban centers like Eko Atlantic are designed for a wealthy elite, and do nothing to help poor communities living on their doorstep.<\/p>\n

Odendaal said that the feeling was similar in South Africa’s major cities.<\/p>\n

In Cape Town, some people see smart city projects as an excuse for gentrification – \u201cjust another way of turning old neighborhoods into swish, consumer zones\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0A look at the massive new \u201ceco smart city\u201d in the middle of Sandton<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Countries around the world are slowly moving towards fully-connected smart cities, but even the most cutting edge technology is likely to run into challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":117344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9878],"tags":[26,7138],"class_list":["post-217983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-headline","tag-uct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217983"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217987,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217983\/revisions\/217987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}