According to World Economic Forum, more than half of the world population live in urban areas, and that figure is expected to reach 70% by 2050! This urban sphere comprises of the built environment – where we live, work and play and in our business, we call it (Community)!

Let us start with the end goal of a smart community: A smart community end goal is to improve quality of the life of the people residing within it, being more sustainable, more responsive, more liveable and healthier and this forms the starting point for a smart city as a broader concept.

As today’s communities are becoming larger, more integrated and offer more mixed-use than ever before, we can multi-task in the same community without the need to travel, at least not for our daily activities. The best example of an ambitious future smart community would be the upcoming mega project in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia “THE LINE”, which is designed to represent the future of urban living while setting humans first and preserving the natural environment and resources. But does every community need to be like THE LINE to be smart?

What makes a community SMART?

A smart community puts data and digital technology to work to improve the quality of life for its residents and enables better decision making for the community management. Three layers work together to make a smart community work.

First is the technology base, which includes a critical mass of sensors and smart phones connected by high-speed communication network. The second layer consists of specific applications translating the raw data into alerts, insights, and actions through applications and softwares.

And the third layer is usage by communities, companies, and the residents (adoption), as smart applications can only succeed if the solution is adopted and utilized to make decisions by the community management or change behaviour or influence actions of the residents.

Here are a few ways in which smart communities can change the way we live:

Health & Liveability

Where and how we live have a large impact on our health outcomes and smart community enables residents to lead more active and healthier lifestyles, from integrating fitness apps to utilizing data to increase fitness and reduce chronic diseases. A smart community helps improve its residents’ physical health.

Increasing social interactions within the community by utilizing social apps and data of community residents also helps improve residents’ mental health. A similar effect is achieved by providing outdoor open spaces, ambient lit indoor spaces and outdoor activity spaces that utilize smart technology to drive use and utilize data to improve those spaces for the best use.

While utilizing emerging technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things) helps monitor and control noise pollution as well as monitor and improve indoor environmental quality (IEQ), especially improving the indoor air quality (IAQ) and water quality which both ensures big improvement on occupants health.

Sustainable

Sustainability sits at the core of smart communities. And it gets better by utilizing data, therefore a smart community with a lot of data connected points is the best fit to adopt sustainability solutions.

According to IEA “Global status report for buildings and construction 2019”, the buildings and construction industry accounted for 36% of total energy use worldwide and 39% of the total CO2 emissions. Those figures are clear enough to explain the impact of built environment on the natural environment and the planet.

Reduced carbon emissions and reduced energy consumption

In a smart community, emerging technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things) are used to monitor and reduce energy consumption by up to 30%, and deployment of smart irrigation and agriculture improving water use efficiency and reduce consumption by up to 50%.

Protecting natural environment

Emerging technologies enable protecting the natural environment as well. Monitoring natural resources and eco system such as lakes, wildlife, bio-diversity are all environmental applications of IoT and technology in a smart community.

Enhanced mobility

Smart communities solve the first/last mile challenge in commuting, by deploying MaaS (Mobility as a Service) technologies and multiple mobility options within the communities to allow people to commute to the nearest public transport without having to use personal vehicles.

This helps to reduce carbon emissions, improve the physical and mental health of residents, improve retail and local business activities and create a sense of social community where people interact locally within the community.

To conclude, smart communities solve some of the most pressing challenges of our time, and today we have the technology and capabilities to build and operate such communities to improve the quality of life of the people who live in them. We need to start now.

This article is authored by Jawad AlTamimi, Director - Facility Management | Community Management | Built-Environment Strategy & Operations, Damac Properties. It is part of our ongoing 'Expert Talk' series.

The opinions in this article are the author's own and do not reflect those of this publication. This is a standard disclaimer.