By Luis Fontanals Jaumá                                                  

Tecnically in a supposedly intelligent city four specific networks interact: the transport and communication network, the water and energy system, the security and maintenance system and the called “internet logistics” which includes all information and telecomunication systems. Technology is transforming the cities globally. By uniting the four networks one can satisfy (and control) the citizen through the information, supply and transport systems.

It’s a matter of recovering the cross-platform public management of the services, which doesn’t mean creating jobs as civil servants which are at the same time gardeners and electricians, but demands public managers who have the tools for cross-platform management and know how to make the most of them

But we have to think thoroughly about who controls an “orwellian” system that keeps records of almost all people, many thoughts and many things, all moving on real time. The democratic society assigns this function to the public powers who, sheltered in the neoliberal acronym PPP, outsource it to mixed companies, when not straightaway private ones. It’s a matter of recovering the cross-platform public management of the services, which doesn’t mean creating jobs as civil servants which are at the same time gardeners and electricians, but demands public managers which have the tools for cross-platform management and know how to make the most of them.

HAZUR® is a paradigmatic tool for the public global manager, it’s the software platform which evaluates and improves the continuity of the urban services, leading to a smart and resilient city.

When you don’t understand how they do business, it usually happens that the business is you

The engeneering consultancy Arup defines the Smart City as the one in which “the structures and interconnections of the different urban systems present themselves as clear, simple, sensitive and even malleable” through technology and design.

The citizen asks for no explanations about who is competent to solve his problems, he wants solutions, he wants to know how he’s paying and that he’s not giving up his freedom and intimacy in exchange

The reality is different, however. Each service is installed in its comfort zone and tries to never go out. It prioritizes the staunch defense of its space. That’s the case of the supply or transport company which doesn’t know or answers anything serious when the wronged citizen lays out proof of arrogance or lack of coordination. Taken to the extreme it’s the recently lived tragedy, with multiple central european police departments installed each in its district and controlling its territory, while a slaughter was being set up... in the center of Paris, Europe district zero.

The citizen asks for no explanations about who is competent to solve his problems, he wants solutions, he wants to know how he’s paying and that he’s not giving up his freedom and intimacy in exchange.

The HAZUR philosophy

HAZUR considers that to service the citizen the technology and design are insufficient to intercommunicate the silos, armoured and defended, and dilute the egos of the different urban services. It provides a tunneling machine -HAZUR Assessment- that opens conducts and an engine -HAZUR Manager- that continuously reveals the gaps in the urban system and learns from experience. There is only one problem with different solutions, all of them valid: to decide who controls the process and who owns the data it generates.

Become "Hazurian":https://skillsalliance.instructure.com/courses/365 

Luis Fontanals Jaumá is an associate professor in the Universitat Ramón Llull, expert in Urban Resilience. He coordinated the Environment, Maintenance and Urban Services Area during the Olympic Games of Barcelona project (1987-1993). He worked for more than 30 years in leadership positions in Repsol and has been a worldwide referent in the industrial and urban security area. He founded along with other partners the company OptiCits.