China is pulling ahead of North America on smart cities

[beijingwalker]

China is pulling ahead of North America on smart cities
Graham Allison
8 hours ago

China is developing 500 smart cities — almost half the worldwide total, and more than 10 times North America's figure.

Why it matters: China's smart cities signal the country's strengths not only in technology and infrastructure, but in implementation.

Details: In Canada and the U.S., smart cities face obstacles including skepticism of Big Tech, privacy concerns, outdated infrastructure, and the difficulty of aligning stakeholders.

• The U.S. is developing 40 smart cities, less than 4% of the globe's total.
• In the meantime, over 80 cities and counties in the U.S. are suing the FCC over new rules designed to accelerate the buildout of America's 5G infrastructure, which is expected to be the backbone of advanced internet-of-things technology.
• Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs is attempting to transform a neighborhood in Toronto into "the most innovative district in the world," but hurdles including protests and lawsuits have delayed plans by 6 months, and construction hasn’t begun.

Meanwhile, China's political system and extraordinary rate of rural-to-urban migration work together to fuel the country's full-speed advance.

• China's urbanization offers opportunities to deploy advanced technologies.
  • China owns over 60% of the globe's 1.5 billion cellular connections that use the most promising IoT technology standard.
  • In Shanghai's Jing'an District, China Telecom has installed more than 500,000 sensors — on everything from fire hydrants to manholes.
  • Hangzhou's smart city technologies have reportedly increased traffic speeds by 15% and reduced ambulance arrival time by 50%.
• But China's sensors and cameras also create a data dragnet, offering China's surveillance state unprecedented omniscience.
  • China has an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras, while the U.S. has 50 million.

The bottom line: When it comes to building smart city infrastructure, China is at a clear advantage, as many of North America's greatest obstacles are irrelevant for the Chinese government.

https://www.axios.com/authors/GrahamAllison

 

[beijingwalker]

US is still using paper money and bankcards, that alone makes US so far behind China.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Only 8% of the US live in cities with more than a million people...so we aren't going to be investing much in smart cities.

 

[beijingwalker]

Only 8% of the US live in cities with more than a million people...so we aren't going to be investing much in smart cities.

Good for you.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Good for you.

Soon when your middle class hits a comfortable
income level where they can afford to hire an architect to build them their own dream home (with a swimming pool, gardens, basketball half-court, and a spot for a boat) you will see a shift out of the cities.

 

[beijingwalker]

Soon when your middle class hits a comfortable
income level where they can afford to hire an architect to build them their own dream home (with a swimming pool, gardens, basketball half-court, and a spot for a boat) you will see a shift out of the cities.

An apartment in Beijing can buy several those houses.

 

[oprih]

Makes sense since most Chinese are smart while the vast majority of murican are hotdog and cheeseburger eating dumbasses.

 

[Nan Yang]

Soon when your middle class hits a comfortable
income level where they can afford to hire an architect to build them their own dream home (with a swimming pool, gardens, basketball half-court, and a spot for a boat) you will see a shift out of the cities.

What a lot of waste. How often do you use the pool. Maybe only 3 months per year. Most Chinese are very cost conscious and practical.

China urbanization will be upwards as opposed to horizontal aka urban sprawl and traffic jams. More efficient economically good for mass transportation, energy and land use.

 

[AViet]

The US can build "smart" things at company level, but for a whole big city (say, pop. at least 5M) or whole country to be "smart", their population need to be smart, which is impossible from human capital point of view, even in next 1,000 years. No machine can totally replace human at such a large scale.

I do not mean to be racist here.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

What a lot of waste. How often do you use the pool. Maybe only 3 months per year. Most Chinese are very cost conscious and practical.

China urbanization will be upwards as opposed to horizontal aka urban sprawl and traffic jams. More efficient economically good for mass transportation, energy and land use.

It was not long ago when Mao scoffed at the thought of the average Chinese person owning a car. As it was a wasteful and impractical Western invention in his eyes and they should be happy to have a bicycle (and of course everybody bowed in unison at his wisdom).

Don't be so sure people will be steadfast in their ways of what is "practical and cost conscious". Today China sells more cars than the US and has a huge automobile road infrastructure. A complete 180 degree turn in opinion from not long ago.

 

[beijingwalker]

It was not long ago when Mao scoffed at the thought of the average Chinese person owning a car. As it was a wasteful and impractical Western invention in his eyes and they should be happy to have a bicycle (and of course everybody bowed in unison at his wisdom).

Don't be so sure people will be steadfast in their ways of what is "practical and cost conscious". Today China sells more cars than the US and has a huge automobile road infrastructure. A complete 180 degree turn in opinion from not long ago.

Mao's words are jokes now in China, maybe only in your mind they are like gospels.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Mao's words are jokes now in China, maybe only in your mind they are like gospels.

We knew his words were jokes in the 1940's. It just took you a long time to figure it out yourselves.

 

[beijingwalker]

We knew his words were jokes in the 1940's. It just took you a long time to figure it out yourselves.

But you still enjoy quoting them to make your point, that's funny.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

But you still enjoy quoting them to make your point, that's funny.

Because at the time in China his words were far from jokes. Maybe in the future people will be looking back at Xi the same way you look at Mao.

 

[jamahir]

Just having skyscrapers and five-level flyovers does not mean a city is smart. One simple point is the possible massive destruction via an earthquake.

What should be constructed is multiple, horizontally-spread townships that can take the population of a single vertically-constructed mega-city.

Mao's words are jokes now in China, maybe only in your mind they are like gospels.

Because at the time in China his words were far from jokes. Maybe in the future people will be looking back at Xi the same way you look at Mao.

The question is - will the Communist Party of China dissolve itself or decide to move further towards actual socialism ??