Sociology: Smart Liveable Cities - Newcastle City Discussion

This discussion post introduces the concept of Smart Liveable Cities (SLC) and examines how global cities can transition into the future. It uses Newcastle, Australia, as a real-life example, highlighting the city's initiatives and projects related to SLC. The post focuses on Newcastle's Engineering, Infrastructure, and Asset Management (EIAM) projects, its Smart City Program, and its strategic planning. It also mentions the Australian government's investment in Smart Cities and Suburbs Programs, and the role of NBN Co in supporting smart initiatives. The discussion identifies the need to assess existing infrastructure to promote SLC worldwide, emphasizing Australia's advantage due to its strong telecom infrastructure. The Newcastle Smart City Strategy's objectives, including stakeholder engagement and identifying strategic actions, are also discussed. The post successfully identifies required actions which need to be implemented in Newcastle in order to improve its liveability.

Running Head: SOCIOLOGY
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Sociology
Smart livable cities
(Student details :)
8/14/2019

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Smart Liveable Cities
This discussion is aimed to introduce the Smart Liveable Cities concept. The paper is going
to explore real-life cases of smart cities for exploring how global cities can be transitioned
into the future. The paper will consider a real-time example of a smart city to explore the
main concept of ‘Smart Liveable Cities’ (SLC). In this way, this discussion will be focused
on the chosen smart city like Newcastle. With the help of some examples in the chosen city,
EIAM projects, plans, activities, policies, and other initiatives will be discussed in relation to
the SLC concept.
Here, Newcastle is a port city of the popular Australian state New South Wales (NSW). It is
well-aware that the city is full of beaches which are linked by the Bathers Way. Bathers Way
is a coastal walk stretching amid Merewether Beach and Nobbys Beach (Smart Nation and
Digital Government Office, 2018). In the context of Australian smart cities, Newcastle is a
famous name because it owns the desire to make Australian cities more prosperous as well as
liveable. The city is continuously driving the integration of info technology into various city
management programs. It has been found that sustainable energy initiatives as well as
solutions are the major priorities of the country and chosen city Newcastle (Bakici et al.,
2013).
Moreover, the Newcastle Smart City Program is consisting of a team of EIAM projects and
activities aimed at generating as well as delivering smart service to the residents of Newcastle
and thereby Australia. Here, the major pillars of the smart initiatives in Newcastle include the
Hunter Innovation project. The hunter innovation project lays the Engineering, Infrastructure,
and Asset Management (EIAM), which ultimately links the networks as well as instrumental
areas of specialization. In addition to that, Newcastle Smart City strategy refers to a strategic
planning paper bringing together the partners and stakeholders towards an innovation future
of Australia (Huichen & Neil, 2016).
The recent news and data show that the Australian government has already invested $50
million into the Smart Cities as well as Suburbs Programs. Here, such initiatives aim at
supporting EIAM research projects while applying smart technologies, data to enhance the
liveability of the metropolitan city as well as to create people-focused designs in Newcastle.
It has been found that the Australian government is having the Smart Cities Plan that is more
of a policy arm (Smart Nation and Digital Government Office, 2018). This policy arm

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supports productive, accessible innovative, growth-oriented as well as liveable cities in
Australia. For example, NBN Co, which is the Australian National Broadband Network, has
been expressed interest in supporting smart initiatives in Newcastle and other cities like
Melbourne, Sunshine Coast, and Adelaide. The EIAM projects and activities in Newcastle
are focusing on IoT network from a collaboration of cities and national councils (Bibri &
Krogstie, 2017).
Apart from this, all the initiatives and programs being fronted have found that there is a major
need to assess the existing infrastructure in order to promote SLC worldwide. It is necessary
to know how SLC can be leveraged to support the smart cities technologies in Australia and
worldwide (Kramers et al., 2016). In this context, Australia is having an advantage over many
other nations because of its strong telecom infrastructure. By using superfast communication,
powerful servers and smart endpoints, the nation and Newcastle may offer connectivity,
mobile technology, as well as data center infrastructure. Furthermore, the above offerings and
smart city initiatives will be helpful in driving innovation and investment in smart cities like
Newcastle at present and in the future as well (Deakin, 2013).
In addition, Newcastle Smart City Strategy contains various objectives like:
 Engagement with stakeholders, partners and the community
 Identify vision and principles for guiding Newcastle being an innovative and smart
city (Bakici et al., 2013).
 Identify relationships with already existing and upcoming renewal and revitalization
projects.
 Identify needed policies, strategic themes, and actions in order to enable Newcastle
being a smart, liveable and innovative city of Australia (Hojer & Wangel, 2015).
In a nutshell, this discussion has talked over the concept of SLC while selecting a particular
region of Australia as Newcastle city. This discussion has successfully narrated various smart
city initiatives in Newcastle which Government has conducted, proposed as well as
conceptualized. The chosen city as Newcastle has been explored from the perspective of
EIAM applications. In whole, this discussion has successfully identified required actions
which need to be implemented in Newcastle in order to improve its liveability.

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References
Bakici, T., Almirall, E. & Wareham, J., 2013. A smart city initiative: the case of Barcelona.
Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 4(2), pp.135-48.
Bibri, S.E. & Krogstie, J., 2017. Smart sustainable cities of the future: An extensive
interdisciplinary literature review. Sustainable Cities and Society, 31, pp.183-212.
Deakin, M., 2013. Smart cities: governing, modelling and analysing the transition. Ed. ed.
London: Routledge.
Hojer, M. & Wangel, J., 2015. Smart sustainable cities: definition and challenges. ICT
Innovations for sustainability, pp.333-49.
Huichen, L. & Neil, W., 2016. IoT Privacy and Security Challenges for Smart Home
Environments. Information, 7(3), p.44.
Kramers, A., Hojer, M., Lovehagen, N. & Wangel, J., 2016. Smart sustainable cities–
Exploring ICT solutions for reduced energy use in cities. Environmental modelling &
software, 56, pp.52-62.
Smart Nation and Digital Government Office, 2018. Initiatives. [Online] Available at:
https://www.smartnation.sg/what-is-smart-nation/initiatives [Accessed 14 February 2019].