Smart Charlottesville: Designing the Future; Smart Cities: A Force of Innovation and Concern

To improve urban sustainability and social equity, and to reduce costs, technical and social innovation is necessary.

How can the University of Virginia and Charlottesville collaborate to enhance the city? Communication between the university and city is deficient; to improve it, the research team developed the Smart Collaborative Charlottesville web application. With the app, projects and improvement suggestions are shown on an online service that supports discussion. Other platforms do not publicize capabilities or do not promote conversation. The Django web app supports fully customizable website requirements. Further research is needed to evaluate the website and to improve its utility.

Cities striving to improve sustainability and social equity, and to reduce costs, can innovate socially and technically. Some favor integrated high-tech systems yielding so-called “smart cities.” Critics of smart cities, however, contend that high tech systems are often a distraction from less expensive low-tech possibilities, and that they compromise privacy, introduce conflicts of interest, and perpetuate bias.