Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
A smart city is one which uses digital technology and data to make safer, healthier, and more efficient urban environments. Some cities already use smart solutions to inform their governance and design. For instance, air quality monitoring has been deployed in many cities to issue health updates in real time and implement low-emission zones. And traffic flow data has informed the creation of congestion charges.
There are many other new applications for smart technologies. Monitoring building use could help optimize heating and cooling through the structure, improving energy efficiency. Virtual reality can be deployed by architects and engineers to create the most efficient possible designs. Informal settlements in developing countries with fewer essential services such as cooling, sanitation, or healthcare, can have access improved by digital technology. Mobile phones could offer applications like mobile banking, location tagging for free energy sources such as solar power, and locations for services such as pop-up clinics.
However, the smart city concept brings significant concerns. The rollout of technologies such as facial recognition may create ever more powerful and intrusive surveillance, and gathering enormous data sets on residents’ behaviour presents serious privacy issues. Bad governance could also result in technological solutions being unequally distributed, entrenching existing class divisions within cities.
Wealthy enclaves could become more sealed off from their neighbours as islands of technological abundance while technology is used to control and isolate poorer citizens rather than improve their lives. But future cities have enormous potential as centres for innovation. They are the perfect environment to trial new technological solutions in transport, healthcare, energy efficiency, and climate change adaptation.
https://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/faqs/what-is-a-smart-city
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