Smart cities do not have to be LARGE cities

OK so Dubuque isn't in Southeast Michigan, it's in Iowa. But this small town, or smallish town, could serve a model for our smallish towns here in Southeast Michigan. To compete economically, Dubuque decided that it'd have to be smart and that meant putting together 11 principles for sustainability. The key to Dubuque is that its smallish size makes its population manageable. It is small enough that these points can be acted upon and a change physically noticed. Listen up cities -- you don't have to be large to be in charge.

Excerpt:

Dubuque is hoping that some of the things that it learns will serve as a model for other cities with fewer than 200,000 population. It has tapped IBM to help with some of its technology needs. The first phase of this partnership will focus on technology for smarter energy consumption and for water management, with the aim of reducing costs associated with both and with managing the overall carbon footprint of the city's power usage. IBM is building out a "Platform for Real-time Integrated Sustainability Monitoring" to handle this management task. Incidentally, here is a report outlining the technology company's vision for Smart Cities.

Read the entire article here.
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