Over the weekend, our friends at SustainableCities.com featured our recent article on IBM's System Dynamics: Planning for Smarter Cities.
System Dynamics: Planning for Smarter Cities
Smart cities don’t happen by accident. To help planners and policy makers better understand and manage the dynamic behavior of cities, IBM Global Business Services is introducing new analytics software and services based on their “smarter cities” strategy. System Dynamics for Smarter Cities is an interactive model that allows leaders to observe how the core systems of a city -- such as the economy, housing, education, public safety, transportation, health care, government services and utilities -- work together and affect one another.
The City of Portland has collaborated with IBM as the first client to implement the new service. Using the model to support the development of metrics for the 25-year Portland Plan, planners in Portland were able to experiment with computer-simulated cause-and-effect situations to see how their decisions might play out across various city systems.
The use of this technology allows municipal leaders to gain an integrated view of how their cities’ systems are inextricably linked, to avoid policies that may have unintended negative effects, and to increase efforts on policies that are projected to have positive ancillary results. In many ways, the system dynamics approach is focused on the same principles as many public engagement strategies: taking deliberate steps to increase knowledge and predict outcomes, in order to build a smarter city.
It's quiet in here! Why not leave a response?
Leave a Response