'Cities of tomorrow emerging in Pakistan'

The automation of utility services in towns, such as house security, traffic and transportation management, health management, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services, makes the living safe secure and cost-efficient.
"Such towns are smart towns which meet the future needs of its inhabitants," says Professor Dr Shaker Mahmood Mayo from the City and Regional Planning Department of the University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore. He said contrary to traditional cities, where most of the tasks are met manually, smart cities are automated and technologically done. The world is slowly turning to smart cities, and Pakistan needs to take a leap towards the modern housing.
He said the smart cities concept was the late 20th century which is equipped with sensors, meters, appliances, personal devices, and other similar sensors. Such cities integrate data into a computing platform that allows the communication of such information among the various city services for efficient delivery. He said in recent decades, there has been a boom in real estate of Pakistan, both investors and residents have shown up-trends in the housing sector. But most of the housing schemes have been following the last century town planning rules. At best they offer gated communities, commercial centres, wide and tree-lined roads, upscale shopping malls, and utilities like water, power and gas. Muhammad Adil, a housing technology consultant, says the cure to such leakages lie in sensors and detectors, which detect such leakages in seconds and pinpoint the exact location of the problem. Once the problem is detected, it is up to the relevant people how early and efficiently they fix it.
He is executing Pakistan's first ever smart city - Graceland Housing - near the new Islamabad airport. Adil said it is not the utility services that can be safeguarded through using technology, but also house security, traffic and transportation management, health management, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services. The whole eco-system is connected through the telecom technology and one can oversee these services just through their smartphones. The serial entrepreneur, mentor, co-author of "New Success Secrets", "L E G Formula" and the founder of Global Social Entrepreneurship Foundation, Muhammad Siddique lives in Atlanta, Georgia, US. He says a smart city is the most modern living trend.
When the world is turning fast to such urban areas that use different electronic data collection sensors to supply information which is used to manage assets and resources efficiently, Pakistan's public urban town regulators have yet to accept these changes. Spokesperson for the Lahore Development Authority Sohail Janjua said the authority had nothing to do with smart city idea as "we are only to follow government regulations". Capital Development Authority Media Director Muhammad Saleem also said that they had not reached the age of smart cities.-PR