The United Nations (UN) predicts that by 2050, urban areas will house the majority of the world’s population. This development will inevitably lead to an increase in environmental, social, and economic issues.
The development of smart cities is one of the most efficient ways to address these anticipated challenges. As the world population grows, embracing smart city technology and making it beneficial for current and future development will remain a focal point for discussion in housing and urban development. In the near future, technology will undoubtedly drive global urban development.
The emergence of smart cities has placed more responsibility than ever before on the role of estate surveyors and valuers, as well as other professionals in the built environment around the world. In recent times and in most developed economies of the world, investments in smart cities have been quite huge.
Many academics and real estate professionals have defined smart cities in various ways. One common denominator in the definition of smart cities is that they are technologically driven with the goal of assisting the world’s growing population to achieve better living conditions more efficiently. A smart city employs data-driven technologies to increase efficiency and significantly improve living standards.
In this context, a smart city is a technologically driven urban development that places a high value on the use of data, the internet, and other proven electronic methods in city management.
The development of smart cities dates back to 1974, when the first smart city was built in Los Angeles, USA, according to World Global Data Thematic Research. Since this historic milestone, subsequent smart cities have been developed across the world especially in the developed economies.
Regardless of its appealing benefits, smart city development will undoubtedly necessitate the necessary infrastructure, which will be powered by the government, its institutions, and private sector developers. Because of Nigeria’s dwindling power generation capacity, which is a major factor in the realization of a truly functional smart city, the dream of fully functional smart cities that are internet and electronically driven remains a mountain to climb.
Almost every stage of smart city development will necessitate the expertise of an estate surveyor and valuer.
The benefits of smart city development are immeasurable, and this will, of course, create jobs for estate surveyors and valuers. In a developing economy such as Nigeria, where estate surveyors have the sole mandate to carry out valuation of landed properties and other assets, the estate surveying and valuation professionals have a catalytic role to play in the unfolding of smart cities.
To align with the development model that will depict future cities, and thus smart cities, the government, private sector practitioners, estate surveyors and valuers, and other professionals in the built industry must develop developmental urban housing policies that will engender the actualisation of smart cities as global city development evolves.
