The Smart City idea attracts hype and scepticism in dynamic balance; but it's a boring kind of balance. As something of a bystander until now and as an architect and citizen, I will attempt here to sieve out the essence of smart.

The scale and pace of urban development is startling. Allowing for a world population of nine billion people by 2050, every single new person on the planet will be accounted for in a city somewhere - that's eight new Londons a year for the next 40 years.

Many people will have heard the Government and tech experts talking about the concept of connected cities. £100million in public spending has been set aside under the Urban Broadband Fund as part of a commitment to making high speed broadband available to everyone in the UK

A plan to turn Bristol into a city of "secret, digital conversations" by allowing people to talk to lampposts, post boxes and bus stops was won a pres...

Cloud-connected cars that talk to the city they move around, and to each other, and a world without traffic jams or accidents are the future according...