Smart cities are an inevitable product of the convergence of achievements in the development of industrialization, informatization, and urbanization in today's society. It has emerged with the development of new information technologies such as the Internet of Things, next-generation mobile broadband networks, and cloud computing. It is highly innovative and highly recognized, and will cause significant changes in people's lifestyles, production methods, and ways of thinking. So what is a smart city, what are its characteristics, how is it built, and what solutions does it have? Below, this article will elaborate one by one.



1、 What is a smart city
With the significant improvement of people's living standards, there are many constraints on the sustainable development of cities. The urban population is expanding, and the pressure on resources, environmental protection, and public services is intensifying. The world is facing problems such as water and electricity scarcity, frequent food safety incidents, and insufficient medical and health resources, which have laid hidden dangers for cities.

The construction of smart cities can help cities deeply explore the cultural and regional characteristics of cities, and expand their perspectives. On the one hand, it brings vitality to the hard power of the city, and on the other hand, it enables more people to understand the city and establish local brands, helping to enhance the soft power of the city and opening up a broad perspective for new culture. The development of modern urban culture cannot be separated from many common and key technologies. When these technologies are breakthrough and popularized in the context of smart cities, they will bring tremendous impetus and integration to the emergence of new culture.


2、 The characteristics of smart cities
Smart cities can promote energy conservation and emission reduction, and promote the adjustment of urban industrial structure; Can establish an effective safety monitoring network to ensure food and drug safety; Being able to integrate public service facilities and meet people's needs in areas such as healthcare, education, and hygiene to the greatest extent possible; It can also quickly and effectively respond to emergencies, etc. A smart city is a solution that coordinates the deep-seated problems faced in the process of urban development, and its most significant feature is the ability to comprehensively and thoroughly perceive and coordinate.



3、 How to carry out the construction of smart cities

1. To do a good job in the top-level design of smart cities
The construction of smart cities, whether it is the renovation of old cities or the construction of new cities, aims to provide a living space that is beautiful, livable, ecologically balanced, and beneficial to physical and mental health for the people of the city through "intelligence". The key issue here is to address the issue of sustainable development in cities. To survive in a city, there must be industries; To have an industry, one must sacrifice the environment; To achieve sustainable development, cities need a good environment. On the path of exploring solutions to this "deadlock", we are attempting to carry out the construction of smart cities. The first thing to do in the construction of smart cities is to do a good job in top-level design based on thorough investigation and research.

How to do a good top-level design? Firstly, it is necessary to understand the existing and upcoming problems in the city under construction, analyze the causes of the problems, and explore solutions to the problems. When analyzing problems and researching solutions, it is important to fully utilize the wisdom of the builders. I have analyzed many problems and proposed solutions, but I am not looking for the main problem. This is "white wisdom". When analyzing the main problem and finding the wrong one, it is blind wisdom. The main problem that top-level design first needs to solve is to reasonably control the size of the city, allocate resources reasonably, minimize environmental damage and sacrifice, and provide the optimal solution for sustainable development of the city; Secondly, design the data layer well, collect, aggregate, and integrate urban basic data and information (population, housing, economy, etc.), resource data and information (data, consumption, capacity, facilities, etc.); Thirdly, do a good job in the design of application layers, such as urban planning, urban construction, urban operation and management, and provide convenient and beneficial services for the people. This involves various industries such as urban construction, transportation, education, healthcare, insurance, security, and disaster prevention and reduction, enabling the rational allocation of urban resources and better services and environment for urban residents.

Top level design is a complex system engineering. Maintaining the ecological environment of the city, supporting the development of industries, and improving the clothing, food, housing, and transportation of urban residents all need to be integrated into the system, coordinated planning, rational design, intelligent processing, and providing optimized solutions. The top-level design also needs to fully consider the basic conditions, technical conditions, and economic capacity of the city. It should be operable, implementable, and can be implemented step by step, continuously improving during construction.


2. Construction of perception layer

The construction of smart cities first starts with the acquisition of basic data and information, and then effectively integrates and stores data, which is an important foundational construction of smart cities.

(1) Access to basic data and information
The prerequisite for achieving intelligence in a smart city is to have a good perception. No matter how smart and intelligent a person is, can they still demonstrate wisdom without perception (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.)? The construction of the perception layer of a city (video, audio, samples, identity recognition, etc.) is the foundation of smart city construction. That is to collect and obtain data from various industries and aspects in the city.
At present, the method of data collection and acquisition is still based on a decentralized approach, which involves deploying, collecting, and acquiring data according to industries such as public security, urban construction, and transportation. This leads to repetitive construction, resulting in waste of manpower, material resources, and financial resources. Therefore, in the construction of the perception layer, comprehensive planning, reasonable deployment, and resource sharing should be carried out. Integrate the collection points that have already been duplicated during upgrades and upgrades. For example, the water supply and drainage in a city are not owned by each household, but are built as a unified infrastructure of the city, with each household connected separately. The perception points of urban information collection should also serve as the infrastructure of the city, and the collected results should be gathered to provide services to the users needed by the city.

(2) Storage of basic data and information
After collecting and obtaining various forms of data and information in cities, it is necessary to organize them reasonably and store them effectively. There is a lack of sufficient understanding and emphasis on the construction of data centers in the plans for cities declared in our province. The plan is commonly used in smart city management, smart communities, smart transportation, etc., each proposing to establish a data center. How to build a data center? The principle of building fewer data centers should be followed. It goes without saying that if one can solve a problem, one should not build two.
A data center is like a human brain, where all information is gathered and advanced technologies, methods, models, etc. are used to provide the optimal solution to the problem. A city without a data center cannot become a smart city. The data stored in data centers of smart cities is massive, and the response time required for the processed events is fast. Therefore, the equipment in data centers should be selected as reliable, scalable, and upgradable as possible, and more importantly, a high-quality professional technical team should be gathered. All pilot cities should give sufficient attention to the construction of data centers.



3. Construction of network layer
The data collection, sample acquisition, and identity recognition of perception points in smart cities all require the transmission of the collected data to the data center. The transmitted data is massive, and high-speed communication networks are required to complete this task. With the development of smart cities and the continuous expansion of application systems, the amount of information transmission will continue to increase rapidly. Therefore, the construction of communication networks in the construction of smart cities is very important.
From the current situation and plans of cities declared by each province, network construction is highly valued. However, it is not difficult to see that communication companies participating in the construction of smart cities have set up the same wiring points in many regions and participate in bidding with the same solutions. In fact, all participating enterprises in the construction should leverage their strengths and strengths to bid before the renovation or construction in different regions. Then, everyone should build according to unified standards and norms, connect and integrate with each other, and form a network. This can reduce investment and is also beneficial for operation and maintenance.

The network construction of smart cities, whether it is the renovation of old cities or the construction of new areas, should be carried out in a forward-looking network planning and coordinated implementation according to the needs of urban development. Network facilities should be used as urban infrastructure, laid along the same route, buried in the same ditch, and installed along the same line during road, pipeline, and line construction. To reduce construction costs and investment.

4. Construction of application layer
The pilot of smart city construction is not inspired by anything, but by the continuous application of new generation information technology in various fields of cities, achieving fruitful results, and promoting the inevitable trend of urban development. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development has proposed a pilot project for the construction of smart cities, drawing on the achievements of promoting the construction of "digital cities" during the 11th Five Year Plan period, and proposing strategic measures to better enhance urban construction and promote urbanization.
So, how to do a good job in building the application layer of smart cities? There are three basic construction tasks: urban basic spatial geographic information database, urban public information database, and urban public information platform. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development has also listed it as a prescribed action in the National Guidelines for the Application and Evaluation of Smart Cities.
Urban basic spatial geographic information database. The reflection of the large demand and problems of urban residents in production and life requires determining their spatial location and reflecting their attributes, which all rely on the support of urban basic spatial geographic information databases. The country attaches great importance to basic spatial geographic information and has specifically established the National Geographic Information Bureau. For smart cities, there must be specialized departments to manage and provide professional urban geospatial information, as well as a good update and operation mechanism, so that the urban geospatial information database has a good current situation and effectively serves the construction of smart cities.

The urban public information database is an indispensable basic database for smart cities. From the application materials and on-site inspections, it can be seen that many cities have a good foundation for public information databases, especially in cities carrying out digital city construction. Accumulating a large amount of public information can provide powerful services for urban public information platforms by re integrating, expanding, enriching, and mining according to the requirements of smart cities.

The urban public information platform is an indispensable basic platform and the most basic application for smart cities. This platform not only provides services for city managers, but more importantly, serves the citizens of the city. The urban public information platform defined by the Ministry of Construction is only a basic framework. With the continuous development of smart city construction and the continuous improvement of intelligence, the functions of the platform will also be further strengthened and improved, which will be more beneficial and convenient for the people.