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Happy Localities Smart Cities = Clever Cities ---> Intelligent Cities = Happy Cities
A Holistic Approach To Localities - Pilot Scheme 1 Programme (PS-1) The New Capacity Building
Programme (NCBP) takes the "Smart Cities" concept a stage further by
considering a locality as a patient. The finality of a project at interconnected
personal, neighbourhood, local, regional, national, continental and world levels
is after all to achieve and sustain the citizens' happiness at all these
interconnected levels. This is indeed an unhappy world. The rich are unhappy
because not rich enough. The poor, because too poor. So the diagnosis is already
known. How about the treatment?
The diagnosis of a
locality is à priori always the same: unhappiness. What then? You have to find
out why. Unhappiness can be described in different ways and have different
causes. So can happiness. One simple question that can be asked: “Are you
happy? Yes or no? If yes, why? If not, why?” Which begs the question “What
is happiness?” This is why a general consensus on a definition of happiness
and on a standard methodology for society well being and quality of life (WBQoL)
profile assessment is essential, but I won’t go into this now. The first step
is therefore listening, talking to the citizens, listening to their concerns,
hopes, interests, solutions (with nominal recognition if requested). In so doing
a dialogue is created, people become less apprehensive regarding the unknown and
more open to innovative solutions that stand a far better chance of
corresponding to their needs. These are the first steps toward replacing an
increasingly coercive society by a listening society, far more effective for
conflict prevention. The interactive
dialogue shall enable you to identify and disentangle the complex network of
interacting intangible and tangible components that together make up and
determines the well/ill being and quality of life of the miniature world of its
own that is a given locality. This holistic multicultural integrated
interdisciplinary approach to the patient (the locality) shall enable you to
reach an aetiological diagnosis of the unhappiness in that locality that is
conducive to an appropriate (and not fragmented) holistic multicultural
integrated interdisciplinary treatment (i.e. solution). The world is a network of networks of “things”. In this network of “things” are included interconnected networks of people, neighbourhoods, localities, regions and continents all affecting each other to a lesser or greater degree. To achieve and sustain the Citizens Of The World’s Well Being and Quality of Life (WBQoL), which is the Third Millennium’s Top Priority, one practical way is to achieve and sustain the citizens WBQoL in the “middle” network: network of localities. As you may well imagine, considering the number of localities worldwide, if one has to figure out each and every time how to proceed for each locality in series, the task of applying this holistic approach to the network of localities worldwide shall take generations. And we are running out of time already. There is therefore a need to set up a highly articulate methodology that can be applied to any locality in the world however big or small, whatever the geographic location. Another meeting bringing together all stakeholders interested in “Smart Cities” from different perspectives should be organised to set up an experimental methodology. The first one took place last 2019. See Pilot Scheme 1 (PS 1) Programme on Happy Localities. We suggest applying this experimental methodology for Pilot Location 1 (village, city, town, ...). Once the location has been turned from an “Unhappy Location” to a “Happy Location” – this means that the “Smart Location” has progressed from “Clever Location” to “Intelligent Location” - we analyse the experimental methodology for that Pilot Location 1. What went well or wrong? After making the necessary corrections, we apply the same methodology to another Pilot Location 2, preferably in a completely different geographic area. After, say, eight or nine Pilot Locations, the experimental methodology shall have been sufficiently refined to be applicable anywhere. We can then set up a Locality Diagnostics Unit (LDU) and voilà! The Pilot Scheme I Programme was initially a Project I directed (as Principal Coordinator) for just one locality grouping together an international consortium including Italy, India, Israel, Malta, Romania, Belgium, Spain, Croatia, Africa (RDC), Portugal, Algeria. The Project then became a Programme that shall now deal with localities worldwide. Interested?
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