In many ways, the smart city concept is simply good urban planning that incorporates both advances in digital technology and new thinking in the age-old city concepts of relationships, community, environmental sustainability, participatory democracy, good governance and transparency. Often, the intelligent city concept involves a re-urbanization of cities, encouraging urbanites to focus their time, energy and abilities to the ongoing urban project through a new layer of electronic connectivity. A virtuous circle is thus formed, in which the city empowers its citizens to power its evolution, creating a positive feedback loop. Above all, smart cities are interactive cities.

Why are landmarks so important to cities? They create a sense of identity and symbolize to citizens and visitors a city’s history and values. Skyscrapers frequently celebrate a city’s successful times or new advances in technology. Today’s urban city planning creates future beacons for cities which convey the new messages of sustainability, green choices and living responsibly. From aerodynamically designed glass towers to updating old landmarks with green solutions to designing state-of-the-art transportation halls and tunnels, city development can display all the advances in technology and thinking in landmarks.

What makes the world go around? Innovative technology. And in mobility, building, energy and manufacturing, especially green innovations are changing how people interact with and shape their environment. Technology innovations are lighting the path to the future, allowing us to imagine cities where LED can illuminate traffic patterns and wearables direct us to the closest hospital or where city-sponsored bikes share lanes with electric cars. New innovative ideas disrupt old patterns, opening the door to new thinking and energy-saving solutions like “lean manufacturing” or “green-roofing”. It keeps us on the move and in the right direction – to sustainable living.

The impact humans have made on environment in the last century may be irreversible, but private citizens, governments, science and innovators and even businesses are uniting to turn a negative into a positive impact. Environmental sustainable development draws on concepts of little waste, lower consumption and switching to green, environmentally-sustainable resources like solar and wind or materials which can constantly be up-cycled. Cradle-to-cradle design and thinking are changing the way we consume and how we handle waste, focusing on solutions which only have a positive impact and leave virtually no footprint.