In This Issue
Spring Bridge on Sustainable Smart Cities
March 15, 2023
The world’s cities face increasing threats from natural disasters, aging infrastructure, traffic, and resource constraints. The articles in this issue examine smart infrastructure, sustainability, net zero carbon options, and autonomous driving, among other approaches to smart and sustainable cities.
Articles In This Issue
  • Monday, March 20, 2023
    AuthorDonald C. Winter

    Much of the national political discourse of late has revolved around the topic of infrastructure. As is typically the case for such matters, the political focus has been on the financial aspects of infrastructure investments—how much to spend and where to spend it. Little attention has been ...

  • Monday, March 20, 2023
    AuthorChai K. Toh

    The term smart cities appears in news and media lately but few clearly understand what it means and what it entails. For example, the word smart in this instance does not specifically refer to artificial intelligence. And because sustainability is a rapidly increasing concern around the world, the ...

  • Monday, March 20, 2023
    AuthorAnne S. Kiremidjian and Michael Lepech

    Smart city implementation involves physical infrastructures, digital IT, policies, financing, community engagement, and partnerships that must be created and sustained in concert with each other.

    The smart city concept was born out of a global need to respond to a coupled challenge of ever-growing ...

  • Monday, March 20, 2023
    AuthorKaren C. Seto

    A combination of high- and low-tech strategies can help cities achieve net zero carbon emissions.

    If the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are needed within the next three decades (IPCC 2018): Global emissions ...

  • Friday, March 17, 2023
    AuthorKenichi Soga

    How can the built environment be rehabilitated or created so that future generations benefit from smart infrastructure?

    Much of the nation’s infrastructure is aging and in poor condition, affecting safety, the economy, and quality of life. A variety of emerging technologies can enhance ...

  • Friday, March 17, 2023
    AuthorCullen Bash, Ninad Hogade, Dejan Milojicic, and Chandrakant D. Patel

    Smart cities represent profound and extensive opportunities to achieve sustainability through IT-enabled supply-demand management of resources.

    Sustainability has become a top priority of industry, government, and academia. Efforts to achieve it encompass a range of actions, from reducing energy ...

  • Friday, March 17, 2023
    AuthorXiangsheng Chen, Changqing Xia, Hongzhi Cui, Chengyu Hong, and Min Zhu

    Advanced materials and intelligent technologies are enabling urban structures that are as resilient, flexible, aware, and self-healing as the human body.

    Urban resilience has been defined as “the measurable ability of any urban system, with its inhabitants, to maintain continuity through all ...

  • Thursday, March 16, 2023
    AuthorGuyue Zhou, Guobin Shang, and Ya-Qin Zhang

    VICAD can enable safer, more comfortable, more energy-efficient, and more environmentally friendly driving in smart cities.

    Autonomous driving (AD) is recognized as a core technology to advance the transportation paradigm shift.[1] Studies have shown that, in the United States, AD may not only ...

  • Wednesday, March 15, 2023
    AuthorStuart G. Walesh

    Widespread engineering licensure-exemption laws dramatically increase risks to the public and undermine engineering’s benefits and commitment to public protection.

    The October 2018 and March 2019 crashes of Boeing 737 MAX 8 airliners killed 346 passengers and crewmembers and grieved many ...

  • Wednesday, March 15, 2023
    AuthorStuart G. Walesh

    Engineer employers, the federal and state governments, and the engineering community all have an important role in minimizing the risks of licensure-exemption laws.

    As explained in the first article in this two-part series (Walesh 2023), engineering ethics codes claim that public protection is ...

  • Wednesday, March 15, 2023
    AuthorPeter Ciriscioli

    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that in 2022 nearly 32,000 people died in traffic crashes in the first nine months of the year.[1] Autonomous vehicles (AVs) promise to dramatically reduce that number. But, although AV developers have reportedly spent more than $75 ...

  • Tuesday, March 14, 2023
    AuthorLucy Yu

    RON LATANISION (RML): Today we’re talking with a chemical engineer who has a deep social conscience, I believe, as I look into some of the things she’s done. She’s a chemical engineer and also now the proprietor of a bookstore, cleverly called Yu & Me Books, in Manhattan. ...

  • Tuesday, March 14, 2023
    AuthorBeth Cady

    Engineering has contributed to many positive things, such as the supply and distribution of clean water, the automobile and airplane, and communications technologies from the telephone to the internet. But a deeper look at the Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century ...