ABSTRACT
The digital platforms fronting Big Data are facilitating an urban management revolution whereby buildings, spaces, vehicles, machines, and control systems can interact effectively and efficiently to micro-adapt to changes in environmental and human behaviour. As traditional projection models become obsolete, since the complexity of these interacting systems cannot be human-managed, an increasing incorporation of sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) predictive solutions is taking hold. Whilst governments are now understanding the value of Big Data, they are not yet fully conversant as to its means of collection, processing, output, and storage; simultaneously, the concept of opening up and sharing information in the public domain is challenging. The coming “Digital Decade” will see spaces created where substantially more data and data sources can be made available for use in society, but who will be in control of these? The potential for cities to become learning machines is very real and they may become the test bed for rapid evaluation of myriad solutions to diverse eventualities, where comprehensive planning becomes a thing of the past, and continual, fast response, iterative citizen-based management becomes the new norm.
