'Smart Communities Thinking' helps you on multiple levels
by Terry Beaubois
With my background in architecture, NASA, a smart house project, researching small towns in Montana, and now teaching the Smart Villages module in a Smart Communities class at Stanford, I have become fully aware that multidisciplinary knowledge and collaboration are the best way forward in building smart, sustainable communities. I’ve also discovered that green builders can take a leading role.
Looking at communities through a “smart” lens helps us understand the reality of the world around us. In my experience, most people do not want to be in an isolated house, isolated town, or an isolated city. Smart communities need to be connected regionally and globally. It’s what makes them connected and smart. The Internet allows us to do this, but we should have the ability to “opt in” to the aspects of the Internet we want and stay safe and secure from what we do not want...