Roman Anton

By Roman Anton

What makes a city great and smart has puzzled many, and millions are fascinated by metropolises and interested in the effects and phenotypes of urbanization. More than ever before, citizens are demanding smart cities, which are in progress and have co-evolved and shaped us, the citizens, the country, the economy, and the world, reciprocally over many centuries. This chapter highlights the past and future roles of communication and pattern formation in the local cluster of the developing smart city and “assistive technologies” and catalyzes that were and will be needed to transform a city via better cluster management, urban planning, coordination, citizen enablement, integration, and citizen feedback into a better functioning, convenient, and intelligent place for all of us including disabled, ill, young, or aged persons. With some explicatory analogy, the “metacity” is becoming a new living entity that is either more or less disable and needs “smart enablement,” new solutions that solve old bottlenecks, as the city is as enabled as its citizens that need some aids. Hence, smart cities are on the agenda in most countries, and fair opportunity, city functioning, smart communication, and smart pattern formation play pivotal roles in the unmatched urban enablement of all citizens and, concomitantly, the enablement of the “metacity” entity. Smart cities thus hold the key to stimulate the economy, to create the pattern of great places for all, to meet our Maslow’s pyramid of needs also on the city level, and without leaving anyone of us behind.

Part of the book: Assistive Technologies in Smart Cities