Actions initiated by citizens give rise to ad hoc, grass roots efforts, where citizens charge themselves with detecting risk. Smart cities and the Internet of Things allow people to interact with their environment and the city and regional governments in new ways. A case in point is detecting radiation in Fukushima. Open data initiatives make municipal activities transparent. I think this is an important guarantee of democracy, and could be the greatest legacy of the IoT.
Although many cities around the globe already use sensor-based technology, soon smart cities will utilise even more data to help inhabitants with everyday things like parking, pollution levels and transport says German technology firm Bosch. While regions prepare for the next stage in smart city development, interoperability will be key to laying the groundwork. Citizens keen to be more involved in developing smart cities should be informed and consulted, the different service vendors should co-operate with each other and lessons from the first iteration of smart cities should be used for subsequent development.