Constitutional economics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_economics

Constitutional economics is a research program in economics and constitutionalism that has been described as explaining the choice "of alternative sets of legal-institutional-constitutional rules that constrain the choices and activities of economic and political agents". This extends beyond the definition of "the economic analysis of constitutional law" and is distinct from explaining the choices of economic and political agents within those rules, a subject of orthodox economics. Instead, constitutional economics takes into account the impacts of political economic decisions as opposed to limiting its analysis to economic relationships as functions of the dynamics of distribution of marketable goods and services.

Constitutional economics was pioneered by the work of James M. Buchanan. He argued that "The political economist who seeks to offer normative advice, must, of necessity, concentrate on the process or structure within which political decisions are observed to be made. Existing constitutions, or structures or rules, are the subject of critical scrutiny."

Constitutional economics has been characterized as a practical approach to apply the tools of economics to constitutional matters. For example, a major concern of every nation is the proper allocation of available national economic and financial resources. The legal solution to this problem falls within the scope of constitutional economics. Another example is to study the "compatibility of effective economic decisions with the existing constitutional framework and the limitations or the favorable conditions created by that framework".

Origins

Constitutional economics was popularized by James M. Buchanan, for which he received the 1986 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (pictured here in September 2010).

The term "constitutional economics" was coined in 1982 by the U.S. economist Richard McKenzie to designate the main topic of discussion at a conference held in Washington D.C. Later, McKenzie's neologism was adopted by another American economist, James Buchanan, as a name for a new academic sub-discipline. It was Buchanan's work on this sub-discipline that brought him the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his "development of the contractual and constitutional bases for the theory of economic and political decision-making" in 1986.

Constitutional economics draws substantial inspiration from the reformist attitude which is characteristic of Adam Smith's vision, and that Buchanan's concept can be considered the modern-day counterpart to what Smith called "the science of legislation."

Positive constitutional economics

Within positive constitutional economics, the tools or methods are unique from normal economic tools because of the cross-disciplinary nature of the program. The main tool of positive constitutional economics is "comparative institutional analysis", with four main elements:

1. The first element examines how certain constitutional rules arose and what factors caused the rules to be developed as a result of aggregated individual inputs.
2. The second element looks at how rules are distinguishable between individual and collective factors, though Voigt acknowledges this research method is rarely used.
3. The third element is the possibilities of further constitutional (or rules) change. Any proposed change to constitutional constraints, or rules of constraints, are subject to economic scrutiny for their effects on efficiency and equity.
4. The fourth element of positive constitutional economics examines the economic effects of developed or modified change to rules.

Normative constitutional economics

Normative constitutional economics focuses on legitimizing the state and its actions as the best means of maximum efficiency and utility, judging conditions or rules that are efficient, and discerning and studying the political systems to maximize efficiency, where the outcome of collective choices are considered "fair", "just", or "efficient".

Both Buchanan and Stefan Voigt argue the foundational assumption of normative constitutional economics is that no single individual's goals or values can supersede the value of another's. Therefore, a universal, absolute social norm or goal is impossible. Buchanan viewed politics as a form of exchange, such as when individuals agree to exchange goods. He believed that if people are acting rationally in their own perceived self-interest, and if the decision is voluntary and informed, any such agreement is "efficient" and therefore normatively ought to occur.

Methodological individualism leads Buchanan to the normative claim that a political theory very similar to that of John Rawls in his seminal 1971 work, A Theory of Justice, would best realize individuals' unique goals. Complete with a veil of ignorance and a priori decisions of social goals, Buchanan says political economy does not have a social engineer or moral purpose but only assists individuals in their search for rules that best serve their individual purposes. For Buchanan, the "good" society is one that furthers the interests of individuals, not some independent moral or teleological end.

James Buchanan's views on the ethics of constitutional citizenship

According to Buchanan, political efficiency, like market efficiency, occurs when all individuals in the community agree to the political structures. Buchanan's argument is similar to a social contract view of government, where individuals agree to place constraints on themselves in exchange for anticipated benefits, Buchanan argued that just as a market transaction occurs through voluntary, mutually beneficial exchange, so with political "exchanges" of rights and authority.

Buchanan believed that the ethic of constitutionalism is a key for constitutional order and "may be called the idealized Kantian world" where the individual "who is making the ordering, along with substantially all of his fellows, adopts the moral law as a general rule for behaviour".

Buchanan introduced the cross-disciplinary concepts of "constitutional citizenship" and "constitutional anarchy". According to Buchanan, "constitutional anarchy" is a modern policy that may be best described as actions undertaken without understanding or taking into account the rules that define the constitutional order. This policy is justified by references to strategic tasks formulated on the basis of competing interests regardless of their subsequent impact on political structure. At the same time Buchanan introduces the concept of "constitutional citizenship", which he designates as compliance of citizens with their constitutional rights and obligations that should be considered as a constituent part of the constitutional policy.

Buchanan wrote that "the ethics of constitutional citizenship is not directly comparable to ethical behavior in interaction with other persons within the constraints imposed by the rules of an existing regime. An individual may be fully responsible, in the standard ethical sense, and yet fail to meet the ethical requirement of constitutional citizenship." Buchanan considered the term "constitutionality" in the broad sense and applied it to families, firms and public institutions, but, first of all, to the state.

Crucial to understanding Buchanan's system of thought is the distinction he made between politics and policy. According to Buchanan, politics is about the rules of the game, where policy is focused on strategies that players adopt within a given set of rules. "Questions about what are good rules of the game are in the domain of social philosophy, whereas questions about the strategies that players will adopt given those rules is the domain of economics, and it is the play between the rules (social philosophy) and the strategies (economics) that constitutes what Buchanan refers to as constitutional political economy".

Hayek

Buchanan is not the only contributor to normative constitutional economics. Economist Friedrich Hayek also wrote extensively on the topic of constitutional economics, even if he did not name constitutional economics specifically. Hayek defends a representative constitutional democracy as the best structure of government. Hayek's main project was the vindication of freedom and establishing criteria for a regime of freedom.

Hayek was worried by the kind of state that Buchanan/Rawls deemed normative. Hayek thought it necessary for a return to the traditional views of government, human nature, political philosophy, and economics. He believed the Buchanan/Rawls state had the almost inevitable propensity to totalitarianism as the state seeks to maximize individual utility.

Economic analysis of the US Constitution

The generally accepted birth of constitutional economic analysis of US Constitution was Charles Austin Beard's landmark 1913 book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. While most scholars today reject Beard's overall thesis, he initiated a new method of economic and political thought that would evolve into contemporary constitutional economics analysis. Beard's main thesis was that the U.S. Constitution "was essentially an economic document based upon the concept that the fundamental private rights of property are anterior to government and morally beyond the reach of popular majorities."

Writing in 1987 for the Yale Law School, Jonathan Macey synthesizes the history of constitutional economic analysis applied to the US Constitution. Macey offers a different analysis of the US Constitution and responds critically to Beard's view of the Constitution.

As Macey understood Beard a famous and crucial part of the Constitution, separation of powers, was actually a means of allowing hegemony of resources in the hands of the rich few. Macey could not disagree more; he argues that the Constitution and separation of powers were created to hinder aggregate political and economic power. He points to Federalist No. 10, James Madison's argument of the necessity of factions due to what he saw as truths of human nature.

Separation of powers

Macey demonstrates how constitutional economics can be applied to constitutions. Rather than looking at the political or philosophic intentions of the founders, Macey viewed the constitution through economic eyes, considering the incentives, choices, allocations, and other economics factors within the political rules of a constitution. Traditionally, the creation of factions has been interpreted as a political move to separate power and prevent hegemony of the state. Macey agrees but adds a caveat. He maintains a real economic incentive to factions existed which compelled the Founders to separate government.

Macey argued that if government is not separated into distinct powers, the possibility of extensive rent-seeking threatens the efficiency of the government due to self-interested groups or individuals lobbying to political powers for their goals. In Macey's interpretation of Madison, the separation of powers channels lobbyists into the competitive, more efficient market by raising transaction costs so much that private market means are less expensive than appealing to the various separate powers of government. Macey then quantifies legislation on a standard supply-demand curve, where the demand is the interest groups' desire for laws and the supply is the legislation's provision. He argues that separation of powers shifts the supply curve left, raising the price and decreasing the quantity of legislation.

Legal approach

Judge Richard Posner emphasized the importance of a constitution for economic development. He examines the interrelationship between a constitution and the economic growth. Posner approaches constitutional analysis mainly from the perspective of judges, who constitute a critical force for interpretation and implementation of a constitution, thus—de facto in common law countries—creating the body of constitutional law. He emphasizes the importance of constitutional provisions "in setting broader outer bounds to the exercise of judicial discretion". Thus, a judge, when trying a case, is guided firstly by the spirit and letter of the constitution. The role of economics in this process is to help "identify the consequences of alternative interpretations" of the constitution.

He then explains that "economics may provide insight into questions that bear on the proper legal interpretation". In the end, as Posner emphasizes, "the limits of an economic approach to deciding constitutional cases [are] set by the Constitution". In addition, he argues that "effective protection of basic economic rights promotes economic growth".

Concurrently with the rise of academic research in the field of constitutional economics in the US in the 1980s, the Supreme Court of India for almost a decade had been encouraging public interest litigation on behalf of the poor and oppressed by using a very broad interpretation of several articles of the Indian Constitution. The former Chief Justice of Indonesian Constitutional Court, Jimly Asshiddiqie, also published his book "Konstitusi Ekonomi" (2010) in promoting the idea of Economic Constitution. This is a vivid example of a de facto practical application of the methodology of constitutional economics.

The President of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, Valery Zorkin, made a special reference to the educational role of constitutional economics: "In Russia, the addition of such new academic disciplines as constitutional economics to the curricula of university law and economics departments becomes critically important."

Russian school

The Russian school of constitutional economics was created in the early twenty-first century with the idea that constitutional economics allows for a combined economic and constitutional analysis in the legislative (especially budgetary) process, thus helping to overcome arbitrariness in the economic and financial decision-making. For instance, when military expenses (and the like) dwarf the budget spending on education and culture. Constitutional economics studies such issues as the proper national wealth distribution. This also includes the government spending on the judiciary, which in many transitional and developing countries is completely controlled by the executive.

The latter undermines the principle of checks and balances, instrumental in the separation of powers, as this creates a critical financial dependence of the judiciary. It is important to distinguish between the two methods of corruption of the judiciary: the state corruption (through budget planning and various privileges being the most dangerous), and the private corruption. The former makes it almost impossible for any business to facilitate the optimal growth and development of national market economy. In the English language, the word "constitution" possesses a whole number of meanings, encompassing not only national constitutions as such but also charters of corporations, unwritten rules of various clubs, informal groups, etc.

The Russian model of constitutional economics, originally intended for transitional and developing countries, focuses entirely on the concept of constitution of a state. This model of the constitutional economics is based on the understanding that it is necessary to narrow the gap between practical enforcement of the economic, social, and political rights granted by the constitution and the annual (or midterm) economic policy, budget legislation and administrative policies conducted by the government. In 2006, the Russian Academy of Sciences officially recognized constitutional economics as a separate academic sub-discipline.

Criticism

Walter Block and Thomas DiLorenzo criticize the possibility of constitutional economics as a science. They maintain that politics cannot be equated with the market and therefore, as a study, it cannot exist. They maintain that unlike the market, consent is not the foundation of politics, and that politics is driven by violent, historically bellicose, coercion. Therefore, they believe that the constitutional economic method only clouds the discussion of public choice and political economy. Buchanan, Voigt, Macey, and even Beard all implicitly assume that politics is the exchange of political "goods", a strong social contract view.

But for Block and DiLorenzo, politics is one powerful group coercing free rides from a weaker group. From the Roman Empire to the present, they trace how the state always comes from conquest and exploitation, never consent. The Calculus of Consent, a foundational text for constitutional economics, bears much of their attack. If they are correct that no state has been or can be voluntary and that voluntary government is inherently contradictory, constitutional economics as a discipline cannot exist.

William Campbell explains the weakness of constitutional economics in its assumption that the goal of a regime must be efficiency, individual liberty, and libertarian rights, not morality or super-individual good.

Smart city

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_city

Possible scenario of smart and sustainable mobility

A smart city is an urban area that uses digital technology to collect data and to operate/provide services. Data can be collected from citizens, devices, buildings, cameras. Applications include traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities, urban forestry, water supply networks, waste disposal, criminal investigations, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services. The foundation of a smart city is built on the integration of people, technology, and processes, which connect and interact across sectors such as healthcare, transportation, education, and infrastructure, etc. Smart cities are characterized by the ways in which their local governments monitor, analyze, plan, and govern the city. In a smart city, the sharing of data extends to businesses, citizens and other third parties who can derive benefit from using that data. The three largest sources of spending associated with smart cities as of 2022 were visual surveillance, public transit, and outdoor lighting.

Smart cities integrate information and communication technology (ICT), and devices connected to the Internet of things (IOT) network to optimize city services and connect to citizens. ICT can be used to enhance quality, performance, and interactivity of urban services, to reduce costs and resource consumption and to increase contact between citizens and government. Smart city applications manage urban flows and allow for real-time responses. A smart city may be more prepared to respond to challenges than one with a conventional "transactional" relationship with its citizens. Yet, the term is open to many interpretations. Many cities have already adopted some sort of smart city technology.

Smart city initiatives have been criticized as driven by corporations, poorly adapted to residents' needs, as largely unsuccessful, and as a move toward totalitarian surveillance.

Background

Historically, cities functioned as centers of innovation, and the advent of the digital era presented opportunities and challenges to apply technology to create urban environments that are more efficient, sustainable, and livable.^{[23][24][25][26][how?][27]}

The shift to smart cities necessitates a comprehensive restructuring of city management and operations, leading citizen participation, and methods of public service delivery.

Cities seek to upgrade their infrastructure and service delivery, to promote social inclusion, technological adoption, and economic development.

The transformation into a smart city involves modifications in planning, management, and operational processes. This data can subsequently be analyzed to identify areas for improvement and optimize urban services.

Information and communication technologies

The concept of smart cities emerged from cities' adoption of information and communications technologies.

ICTs present challenges given financial limitations, technical obstacles, and privacy and security concerns. ICTs are also not uniformly accessible across communities, contributing to the digital divide.

Definition

No commonly accepted definition of "smart city" has emerged. Evaluating smart city initiatives becomes difficult without agreement on parameters. It also hampers the ability to compare projects and identify best practices.

Deakin and Al Waer list four factors that contribute to the definition of a smart city:

• Application of a wide range electronic and digital technologies
• Use of ICT in living and working environments
• Use of ICT in government systems
• The territorialisation of practices that brings ICT and people together to enhance innovation and knowledge.

Deakin defines the smart city as one that uses ICT to meet the demands of the market (the citizens of the city), based on community involvement. Studies of smart city projects can be used as an alternative to difficult-to-define broad definitions in order to clarify what smart cities are.

Early definitions

Notable disparities among smart city definitions include the relative focus on economic advantages versus environmental or social benefits and specific technology choices.

Smart city definitions include:

• Caragliu et al. (2011): “A city is smart when investments in human and social capital and traditional (transport) and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure fuel sustainable economic growth and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory governance.”
• Bakici, Almirall, & Wareham (2013): “Smart city as a high-tech intensive and advanced city that connects people, information, and city elements using new technologies in order to create a sustainable, greener city, competitive and innovative commerce, and an increased life quality.”
• Nam and Pardo (2011): “A smart city infuses information into its physical infrastructure to improve conveniences, facilitate mobility, add efficiencies, conserve energy, improve the quality of air and water, identify problems and fix them quickly, recover rapidly from disasters, collect data to make better decisions, deploy resources effectively, and share data to enable collaboration across entities and domains.”

Research

The main issues surrounding smart city research include:

• Absence of intellectual exchange among researchers;
• Researcher inclination to pursue subjective avenues of research in isolation from their peers;
• The resulting division within the scientific community.

Motivations

Population growth

An important motivation for smart cities is projected population growth. The UN forecasts global population to reach 9.6 to 13.2 billion by 2100, with cities absorbing 80% of this growth.

Tragedy of the commons

An important goal of smart city initiatives is to use ICTs to address the tragedy of the commons problem. This phenomenon occurs when individuals acting in their own self-interest deplete a communal resource. For example, while each individual driver in a city saves time and flexibility by driving, the resultant excessive driving of the community causes traffic congestion and environmental issues. This situation is worsened when public transportation services get little attention due to the use of personal vehicles.

History

Philosophical predecessors of smart cities can be found in utopian works such as New Atlantis (1626). Another was Ebenezer Howard's 1898 concept of Garden Cities. These were dense, size-limited cities founded in rural areas by private groups, combining the benefits of the city and the country. Other conceptions include those of Edward Bellamy, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier. Critics of smart cities draw parallels between the weaknesses of these utopian visions and the weaknesses of smart cities today.

The concept of "smart cities" emerged from global cities' recent adoption of information and communications technologies for urban use, which can be used to improve efficiency, sustainability, and livability in urban environments. Some of the earliest interventions in urban planning include the use of computational statistical analysis by the Community Analysis Bureau in Los Angeles in the late 1960's and the establishment by Singapore of the National Computer Board in 1981.

The smart city concept experienced a major surge around 2005. Tech companies sought to create information systems to enhance operational efficiency for cities.

A global movement emerged advocating smart cities.

IBM launched its Smarter Planet marketing initiative in 2008, which included the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge. In 2010, Cisco Systems, with $25 million from the Clinton Foundation, established its Connected Urban Development program in partnership with San Francisco, Amsterdam, and Seoul. In 2011, a Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona attracted 6000 people from 50 countries. The European Commission in 2012 established the Smart Cities Marketplace, a centralized hub for urban initiatives in the European Union. The 2015 Chancellor’s Budget for the United Kingdom proposed to invest £140 million in smart cities and IoT. Smart city competitions were launched in the 2010s by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United States Department of Transportation. In 2016, AT&T launched an alliance with Cisco, Deloitte, Ericsson, General Electric, IBM, Intel, and Qualcomm, with municipal partners Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; and Dallas, Texas.

Characteristics

Key characteristics that define innovative urban environments include:

• Connectivity: IoT networks collect and transmit data from sensors throughout the urban environment.
• Data-driven decision making: Advanced analytics and artificial intelligence enable more informed and responsive governance.
• Sustainable infrastructure: Energy-efficient buildings, renewable energy, and intelligent transportation systems.
• Urban Optimization: Reduce resource usage, reduce ecological footprints, and enhance living standards to create more environmentally responsible urban spaces.
• Citizen engagement: Facilitate communication between residents and government, promoting participation in urban planning and decision-making processes.
• Smart mobility: Integrate public transit, bike-sharing, and autonomous vehicles, aim to reduce congestion and improve accessibility, as well as analyzing mobility behavioral patterns of citizens to improve services and optimize the city infrastructure.
• Enhanced public services: Improve the delivery of essential services.

Methods

Information and communications technologies

It has been suggested that a smart city (or other community) uses information technologies to:

1. Make more efficient use of physical infrastructure (roads, built environment and other physical assets) through artificial intelligence and data analytics in order to support a strong and healthy economic, social, cultural development.
2. Engage effectively with local governance by use of open innovation processes and e-participation, improving the collective intelligence of the city's institutions through e-governance, with emphasis placed on citizen participation and co-design.
3. Learn, adapt and innovate and thereby respond more effectively and promptly to changing circumstances by improving the intelligence of the city.

They evolve towards a strong integration of all dimensions of human intelligence, collective intelligence, and also artificial intelligence within the city. According to Mitchell, the intelligence of cities "resides in the increasingly effective combination of digital telecommunication networks (the nerves), ubiquitously embedded intelligence (the brain), sensors and tags (the sensory organs), and software (the knowledge and cognitive competence)".

The physical components of IT systems are crucial to early-stage smart city development. Wired infrastructure is required to support the IoT and wireless technologies central to more interconnected living. A wired city environment provides general access to continually updated digital and physical infrastructure. The latest in telecommunications, robotics, IoT, and various connected technologies can then be deployed to support human capital and productivity.

Forms of intelligence

Bletchley Park is often considered to be the first smart community.

Intelligence in smart cities has been demonstrated in three ways:^{[citation needed]}

1. Orchestration intelligence: Cities establish institutions and community-based problem solving and collaborations, such as in Bletchley Park, where the Nazi Enigma cipher was decoded by a team led by Alan Turing. This has been referred to as the first example of a smart city or an intelligent community.
2. Empowerment intelligence: Cities provide open platforms, experimental facilities and smart city infrastructure in order to cluster innovation in certain districts. These are seen in the Kista Science City in Stockholm and the Cyberport Zone in Hong Kong. Similar facilities have also been established in Melbourne and Kyiv.
3. Instrumentation intelligence: City infrastructure is made smart through real-time data collection, with analysis and predictive modelling across city districts. There is much controversy surrounding this, particularly with regards to surveillance issues in smart cities.

Examples of instrumentation intelligence are those implemented in Amsterdam. This is realized through:

1. A common IP infrastructure that is open to researchers to develop applications.
2. Wireless meters and devices transmit information at the point in time.
3. A number of homes being provided with smart energy meters to become aware of energy consumption and reduce energy usage.
4. Solar power garbage compactors, car recharging stations and energy saving lamps.

Energy usage

Smart cities use data and technology to create efficiencies, improve sustainability, create economic development, and enhance quality of life factors for people living and working in the city. A variety of different datasets may need to be integrated to create a smart energy infrastructure. Employment of smart technologies enables the more efficient application of integrated energy technologies in the city allowing the development of more self-sustaining areas or even positive energy districts that produce more energy than they consume.

A smart city is powered by "smart connections" for various items such as street lighting, smart buildings, distributed energy resources (DER), data analytics, and smart transportation. Amongst these things, energy is paramount; this is why utility companies play a key role in smart cities. Electric companies, working partnership with city officials, technology companies and a number of other institutions, are among the major players that helped accelerate the growth of America's smart cities.

According to David K. Owens, the former executive vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, two key elements that a smart city must have are an integrated communications platform and a "dynamic resilient grid."

Smart grids are an important technology in smart cities. The improved flexibility of the smart grid permits greater penetration of highly variable renewable energy sources such as solar power and wind power.

Energy Data Management Systems (EDMS) can help to save cities energy by recording data and using it to increase efficiency.

Data management

For a smart city to function, it is necessary for it to manage an enormous amount of data collected through the embedded devices and systems in its environment. This is also important for the cities growth and security. Smart cities use a variety of data collection, processing, and disseminating technologies, in conjunction with data security and privacy measures, in attempting to encourage innovation and improve citizens' quality of life. This can relate to topics including utilities, health, transportation, entertainment and government services.

Online collaborative sensor data management platforms are on-line database services that allow sensor owners to register and connect their devices to feed data into an on-line database for storage and allow developers to connect to the database and build their own applications based on that data.

Electronic cards (known as smart cards) are another common component in smart city contexts. These cards possess a unique encrypted identifier that allows the owner to log into a range of government provided services (or e-services) without setting up multiple accounts. The single identifier allows governments to aggregate data about citizens and their preferences to improve the provision of services and to determine common interests of groups. This technology has been implemented in Southampton.

Cognitive technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, can be trained on the data generated by connected city devices to identify patterns. The efficacy and impact of particular policy decisions can be quantified by cognitive systems studying the continuous interactions of humans with their urban surroundings.

Transportation

Bicycle-sharing systems are an important element in smart cities.

Intelligent transportation systems and CCTV systems are also being developed.

Retractable bollards allow to restrict access inside city centers (i.e. to delivery trucks resupplying outlet stores). Opening and closing of such barriers is traditionally done manually, through an electronic pass but can even be done by means of ANPR cameras connected to the bollard system.

Human factors

According to McKinsey, smart city initiatives can have measurable positive impacts on the quality of life of its citizens and visitors. The human framework of a smart city – its economy, knowledge networks, and human support systems – is an important indicator of its success.

For example, arts and culture initiatives are common focus areas in smart city planning. Innovation is associated with intellectual curiosity and creativeness, and various projects have demonstrated that knowledge workers participate in a diverse mix of cultural and artistic activities.

Since mobility is a key area of smart city development, building a capable workforce through education initiatives is necessary. A city's learning capacity includes its education system, including available workforce training and support, and its cultural development and exchange.

Numerous Smart city programs also focus on soft infrastructure development, like increasing access to voluntary organizations and designated safe zones. This focus on social and relational capital means diversity, inclusion, and ubiquitous access to public services is worked in to city planning.

The development of a knowledge economy is also central to Smart city projects. Smart cities seeking to be hubs of economic activity in emerging tech and service sectors stress the value of innovation in city development.

Enabling technologies

Smart cities leverage a number of technologies:

• Mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets) are a key technology allowing citizens to connect to the smart city services.
• Smart homes and specifically, the technology used in them, contribute data and connection to smart cities as a whole.
• Digital libraries have been established in several cities, and contribute to the dissemination of information within and across cities.

Additional supporting technology and trends include remote work, telehealth, the blockchain, and online banking technology,

A "ubiquitous city"(U-city) is one concept of a smart city that provides access to public services through any connected device, bringing easy accessibility to every infrastructure.

Criticism

See also: Surveillance issues in smart cities

Criticisms of smart cities include:

• Big data collection and analytics raised questions over surveillance in smart cities, particularly over predictive policing.
• Over-emphasis on smart cities means ignoring other domains.
• Urban development is often haphazard. A data-based approach "can deaden and stupefy the people who live in its all-efficient embrace".
• Technological and networked infrastructures have downsides that may offset the benefits.
• The capital mobility that allows business to take advantage of smart cities also allows them to leave for a better offer.
• Urban data collection involves surveillance, which potentially invades individual privacy. Without protections that have frequently failed scanning, identification, location tracking (including time and direction) can empower bad actors.
• Smart city approaches are irrelevant to cities without the means to implement the required technologies, such as in developing countries.
• Persons with disabilities are not always accommodated by smart city technologies.
• Digital technologies can have a significant environmental footprint that may be visited onto other communities.
• "Smart city" can be used as a slogan merely to stimulate land revenue generation.
• Clark claimed that technologies actually adopted tended to be those that deliver digital services directly to residents (e.g., ride-hailing services and online food ordering) or which solve a specific problem of municipal government, rather than enhancing infrastructure.
• Digital technology has the potential to be used in negative as well as positive ways, and its use is inherently political. Smart cities can perpetuate or mitigate inequalities.

Initiatives

China

China's smart cities movement began with a pilot program launched in 2012 through its Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. China's National New-Type Urbanization Plan for 2014-2020 included smart cities. It identified six important aspects for developing smart cities:

• information network and broadband
• digitization of planning management
• smart infrastructure
• convenience of public services
• modernizing industrial development
• sophisticated social governance.

As of 2016, approximately 500 smart city projects had launched. In 2021, China took first in all categories of the International AI City Challenge – "by some estimates, China has half of the world’s smart cities".

Commercial companies

Alibaba created City Brain. Its first overseas implementation began in 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Baidu developed Apollo, a self-driving technology. Tencent launched medical technology, such as WeChat Intelligent Healthcare, Tencent Doctorwork, and AI Medical Innovation System (AIMIS).

As of 2024, "Safe City" digital products were marketed abroad by Chinese companies including Dahua Technology, Huawei, ZTE, and Hikvision. Huawei's Safe City Compact Solution focuses on improving safety. In 2018, Serbia announced a Safe City project for Belgrade in conjunction with Huawei, using one thousand cameras with advanced facial recognition and license plate recognition capabilities.

United States

The United States allocated more than $160 million toward smart city initiatives. Challenges include traffic congestion, economic growth, crime, climate change, and public services.

Canada

The "smart communities" movement took shape as a strategy to involve more users in IT. Primary issues included traffic congestion, school overcrowding and air pollution.

Europe

EU members began working on smart city developments and ICT initiatives in the mid 2010s. The Digital Agenda for Europe framework emphasizes harnessing ICTs. The 2014-15 budget of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program, included approximately 200 million Euros to expedite smart cities.

As of 2024 Estonia had proceeded furthest towards digitizing public services.

Africa

The African Union Commission pledged to utilize ICTs to advance sustainable urban development.

Southeast Asia

ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN) is a collaborative platform to advance smart city efforts across ASEAN by catalysing bankable projects, and securing funding and support from ASEAN's external partners.

India

The Smart Cities Mission is a retrofitting and urban renewal program spearheaded by the Ministry of Urban Development.

United Nations

The New Urban Agenda emphasized the importance of smart city development, establishing a fundamental commitment for the UN's 193 member states.

Implementation

The most common characteristics of a "smart city" are networked infrastructure; emphasis on business-led urban development; social inclusion of various resident groups; and an emphasis on the environment.

Partnerships

Smart city initiatives require collaboration and involvement from government agencies, businesses, community organizations, academia, and citizens. Collaborating with businesses and academia brings technical know-how and research capabilities.

Collaborations with community organizations can improve equity and inclusivity.

Telepsychiatry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepsychiatry

Telemental health session

Telepsychiatry or telemental health refers to the use of telecommunications technology (mostly videoconferencing and phone calls) to deliver psychiatric care remotely for people with mental health conditions. It is a branch of telemedicine.

Telepsychiatry can be effective in treating people with mental health conditions. In the short-term it can be as acceptable and effective as face-to-face care. Research also suggests comparable therapeutic factors, such as changes in problematic thinking or behaviour. 

It can improve access to mental health services for some but might also represent a barrier for those lacking access to a suitable device, the internet or the necessary digital skills. Factors such as poverty that are associated with lack of internet access are also associated with greater risk of mental health problems, making digital exclusion an important problem of telemental health services.

During the COVID-19 pandemic mental health services were adapted to telemental health in high-income countries. It proved effective and acceptable for use in an emergency situation but there were concerns regarding its long-term implementation.

Definition

Telepsychiatry or telemental health means the use of telecommunications (videoconferencing, voice call, text messages) to provide mental health services from a distance. This can include a wide range of services from different forms of traditional therapy (individual, group, family) to psychiatric evaluations and managing medications. Telemental health is a branch of telemedicine which is the process of using telecommunications technology to deliver medical services.

Effectiveness

Telemental health services can be effective in improving symptoms and quality of life among people with mental health disorders. People who choose to receive services in this way, or for whom it would otherwise be difficult to receive care, tend to view these services positively as it improves their access to mental health care. Compared to face-to-face care, telemental health services delivered via video-call can be as acceptable and effective in the short term as the former, and are sometimes reported to result in lower rates of missed appointments.

Telepsychiatry is most successful when it is provided in a personalised and flexible way. Taking individual preferences into account regarding whether service users wish to receive care remotely, and if so whether by video or phone call results in a more acceptable and effective service. These preferences may change over time and vary from appointment to appointment, so revisiting them regularly is also necessary.

Benefits and limitations

Rural communities, people with physical disabilities may benefit from telemental health, as it reduces the need to travel (which can be difficult or costly in terms of time and money) and arrange and pay for child care. In regions with low population density, online groups can be easier to implement, as achieving minimally required group numbers seems more feasible. 

For individuals with mental health problems which affect their ability and/or willingness to travel and meet clinicians face-to-face, telemental health can be an appropriate solution. It also offers a way to receive care for people reluctant to visit stigmatised places like those offering mental health care. Conversely, telemental health may exacerbate some mental health symptoms, such as paranoia and anxiety, and therefore may not be suitable for everyone.

Digital exclusion is a key concern for the use of telemental health. For already disadvantaged groups the widespread application of an online-first approach could exacerbate health inequalities. For example, mental health service users may lack access to an appropriate device or the internet. This may affect many groups of service users, including homeless people, people in inpatient wards, older adults, individuals with dementia, young children, people living in poverty, refugees, Travellers, among many others. Some people may also not have the ability, knowledge and confidence to use technology to connect online. Service users might also lack private space or find participating in sometimes intimate and distressing discussions from home intrusive. Other barriers include difficulty in establishing and maintaining therapeutic relationships and in conducting high-quality assessments. The user-friendliness of the digital platform is also an important factor in how inclusive a telemental health service is. When video calls are not acceptable or feasible phone calls or text messaging may be options but tend to result in more limited conversations and briefer interactions.

The use of video calls often results in a change in visual and auditory cues, which can be disruptive for service users (especially those engaging with mental health care for the first time) and staff. There are ways to improve the therapeutic quality when using telemental health, for example, setting up cameras at an appropriate angle and height, and using a high speed internet connection at both ends, to reduce the likelihood of video glitches or audio lags.

Providing mental health care via video calls is largely seen as beneficial among mental health staff, due to its ability to improve access to care and increase efficiency of services. When training, technical support, clear guidelines and a good digital infrastructure are available, clinicians can find telemental health useful and easy to engage with. However, when training and technical support is unavailable, it can represent a challenge and concern to staff. In addition, some mental health staff express concerns regarding safety, security, liability, and confidentiality when using video calls to provide mental health care.

Optimizing the implementation of telemental health can be achieved by using guidelines and strategies that are created together (co-produced) with service users and staff.

Sub-specialties

Telepsychiatry includes a variety of sub-specialties based on different contexts of service delivery.

Home-based telepsychiatry

Psychiatric support of people who are at home or in another private setting is called home-based telepsychiatry or direct-to-consumer telepsychiatry, and it can be delivered with only a webcam and high-speed internet service. The growth in home-based telepsychiatry is attributed to a shortage of psychiatrists and the ability to reach people in rural areas. The telepsychiatrist, collaboratively with service users, needs to consider several factors before starting treatment. They must receive informed consent and guarantee that the use of telepsychiatry is safe for the patient, use secure videoconferencing platforms in order to protect the patient's privacy and provide the same standard of care as in a traditional office. Telepsychiatry produces similar treatment outcomes and has similar reliability of diagnosis compared to face-to-face therapy. Patient satisfaction with telepsychiatry is generally high, although providers report lower levels of satisfaction than patients. Despite a higher up-front cost, telepsychiatry is more cost-effective in the long run due to savings in travel expenses. At the same time patients may lack access to privacy in their homes to attend telepsychiatry appointments.

Forensic telepsychiatry

Forensic telepsychiatry is the use of a remote psychiatrist or nurse practitioner for psychiatry in a prison or correctional facility, including psychiatric assessment, medication consultation, suicide watch, pre-parole evaluations and more. Telepsychiatry can deliver significant cost savings to correctional facilities by eliminating the need for prisoners to be escorted to off-site appointments and psychiatric interventions.

On-demand telepsychiatry

As of 2008, guidelines are being developed for the provision of telepsychiatric consultation for emergency psychiatric patients, such as the evaluation of people who are distressed and feeling suicidal, depressed, manic, or experience psychosis, acute anxiety patients. However, emergency telepsychiatry services are already being provided to hospital emergency departments, jails, community mental health centers, substance abuse treatment facilities, and schools. Emergency telepsychiatry can ease staff shortages in overworked hospital emergency departments and increase the number of people with mental health conditions who can receive care. Rather than employ expensive, short-term locum tenens doctors or have emergency department physicians evaluate the psychiatric stability of their patients, hospitals can use telepsychiatry to decrease costs and increase patient access to behavioral health evaluations by psychiatric specialists.

Crisis telepsychiatry is also an efficient means of reducing the need for psychiatric boarding. Psychiatric boarding is when someone is detained, often in a hospital emergency department, while waiting for proper psychiatric treatment. With the increased throughput offered by telepsychiatry, psychiatric consumers enjoy reduced wait times and faster access to care.

Scheduled telepsychiatry

Many facilities that offer behavioral health care are turning to telepsychiatry providers to allow for an increased care capacity. With routine telepsychiatry, a consistent provider or small group of providers serve a regular caseload of service users in previously scheduled blocks of time. Remote providers can be consulted for medication management, treatment team meetings, supervision, or to offer traditional psychiatric assessment and consultations.

Having access to remote providers allows facilities, especially those in rural areas that struggle to recruit and maintain providers, access to a greater variety of speciality care to offer their service users. For example behavioural therapy is an effective treatment for tics in children but many can not access this service due to a lack of professionals. Offering an online, self-guided but therapist-supported intervention can be effective in reducing tics and could allow more people to receive care.

Telepsychiatry around the world

In the United States

One of the drivers behind telepsychiatry's growth in the United States has been a national shortage of psychiatrists, particularly in specialty areas such as child and adolescent psychiatry. Telepsychiatry can allow fewer doctors to serve more patients by improving utilization of the psychiatrist's time. The most common means of insurance coverage for telehealth services among the United States is to incorporate coverage into the Medicare program. Reimbursement for Medicare-covered services must satisfy federal requirements of efficiency, economy and quality of care. Since 1999, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for all kinds of telehealth services have expanded, requirements of providers have been reduced, and grants have been given to support telehealth program adoption. For 2014, the Center for Medicare (CMS) services does cover telemedicine services, including telepsychiatry in many areas.

HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is a United States federal law that establishes security and privacy standards for electronic medical information exchange, including telemental health services. In order to comply with HIPAA guidelines, many providers develop their own specialized videoconferencing services, since common third-party consumer solutions do not include sufficient security and privacy safeguards. There are also a growing number of HIPAA-compliant technologies available for telepsychiatry.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation and Epic Research database of electronic health records, 40% of mental health and substance abuse visits in the United States were conducted by telehealth in 2021 (as compared with only 5% of all other outpatient care visits and virtually no mental health and substance abuse visits being conducted by telehealth prior to the COVID-19 pandemic), while more than 150 million Americans lived in designated healthcare shortage areas for mental health professionals by the Health Resources and Services Administration in 2022.

Since the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in November 2021, the telehealth industry in the United States has expanded due to its $65 billion appropriation for broadband internet access expansion, and online mental health start-up companies saw a $4.8 billion increase in investment in 2022 according to Rock Health.

Digital advertising spending by telehealth companies increased from approximately $10 million in 2020 to $100 million in 2021 (while $23 million in telehealth digital advertising was spent on TikTok alone from January to November 2022). In December 2022, The Wall Street Journal published an analysis it conducted in October and November of that year of telehealth digital advertisements that found that 20 companies ran more than 2,100 advertisements on Facebook and Instagram that described prescription drug benefits without citing risks (including for ketamine and testosterone), that promoted unapproved usages of drugs, or that featured testimonials without disclosing the speaker's relationship with the company, while 15 telehealth companies ran more than 1,800 other social media advertisements without prescription drug warnings or risks (including at least 800 that promoted controlled substances).

Several U.S. based media publishers have even invested in testing and surveying to find what makes the best online psychiatry services. Brands like HelpGuide, a non-profit that specializes in mental health education and awareness, has conduct studies to identify the top providers in online psychiatry in the United States.

In India

India's large population and relatively small number of psychiatrists makes telepsychiatric service a good option for expanding access to mental health care. Telepsychiatry in India is still a young industry, but it is gradually growing, led by institutes such as the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh and the Schizophrenia Research Foundation in Chennai.

In the UK

In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic the National Health Service (NHS) has been slow at implementing telepsychiatry.

During the pandemic, there was rapid utilisation of telemental health to maintain contact and provide some services to people with mental health problems. Technological initiatives have also helped to address social isolation, which worsened throughout the pandemic. There were large increases in remote consultations in NHS primary care, and national data reported that most contacts in NHS mental health settings were delivered remotely in 2020 particularly during the first UK lockdown (March to July 2020).

Global health

There is an increasing demand for telemental health services in low- and middle income countries. This is especially pronounced due to the lack of access to quality healthcare, underfunding and low awareness of mental health issues. In a global health context telemental health may offer access to high-quality mental health services for a wider range of people. At the same time there are concerns around data security and challenges regarding proper infrastructure, capacity, access and skills.

Telemental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

Due to lockdowns or ‘stay at home’ orders at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health services in high-income countries were able to adapt existing service provision to telemental health care. Estimates suggest that between 48% and 100% of service users who were already receiving care at the start of the pandemic were able to continue their mental health care using remote methods. Some face-to-face appointments still took place if necessary.

During the pandemic telemental health care (mostly phone and video calls) was effective and viewed as acceptable by the majority of clinicians and service users for use in an emergency situation. However both groups had concerns regarding the longer term use of telemental health care. For example, clinicians identified concerns including difficulties with medication appointments, concerns around engaging and assessing new patients, and finding it harder to assess some physical indicators of mental health status remotely. Service users identified barriers including a lack of private space at home to access during their sessions or access to technology.

The rates of telemental health use seem to have declined as COVID-19 restrictions were loosened, indicating that face-to-face care might be preferable for some service users and clinicians.

Lifelong learning

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelong_learning

Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of learning for either personal or professional reasons.

Lifelong learning is important for an individual's competitiveness and employability, but also enhances social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal development.

Professions typically recognize the importance of developing practitioners becoming lifelong learners. Many licensed professions mandate that their members continue learning to maintain a license.

Lifelong learning institutes are educational organisations specifically for lifelong learning purposes. Informal lifelong learning communities also exist around the world.

History

In some contexts, the term "lifelong learning" evolved from the term "life-long learners", created by Leslie Watkins and used by Clint Taylor, professor at CSULA and Superintendent for the Temple City Unified School District, in the district's mission statement in 1993, the term recognizes that learning is not confined to childhood or the classroom but takes place throughout life and in a range of situations.

In other contexts, the term "lifelong learning" evolved organically. The first lifelong learning institute began at The New School for Social Research (now The New School) in 1962 as an experiment in "learning in retirement". Later, after similar groups formed across the United States, many chose the name "lifelong learning institute" to be inclusive of nonretired persons in the same age range.

Traditional colleges and universities are beginning to recognize the value of lifelong learning outside of the credit and degree attainment model. Lifelong learners, including persons with academic or professional credentials, tend to find higher-paying occupations, leaving monetary, cultural, and entrepreneurial impressions on communities, according to educator Cassandra B. Whyte.

Libraries in the United States

Partners for Lifelong Learning, Public Libraries and Adult Education

In the United States, librarians have understood lifelong learning as an essential service of libraries since the early part of the 20th century. In 1924, William S. Learned, wrote of the potential of the American public library as an agency for adult education in The American Public Library and the Diffusion of Knowledge. Two decades later, in 1942, the American Library Association Adult Education Board established a new responsibility to the adult reader.

The Adult Education Act of 1966 linked literacy education and adult basic education programs. This occurred at the same time that the Library Services and Construction Act was being passed. Twenty-five years after the U.S. Adult Education Act was passed, the U.S. Office of Education published Partners for Lifelong Learning, Public Libraries and Adult Education.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) was established in 1996 and incorporated responsibilities from the U.S. Office of Education's library programs, including those focused on lifelong learning. "Championing Lifelong Learning" through libraries and museums is the first goal listed in the organization's strategic plan for 2022-2026.

Definition

Lifelong learning has been defined as "all learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences within a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective". It is often considered learning that occurs after the formal education years of childhood and into adulthood. It is sought out naturally through life experiences as the learner seeks to gain knowledge for professional or personal reasons. These natural experiences can come about on purpose or accidentally.

Lifelong learning has been described as a process that includes people learning in different contexts. These environments do not only include schools but also homes, workplaces, and locations where people pursue leisure activities. However, while the learning process can be applied to learners of all ages, there is a focus on adults who are returning to organized learning. There are programs based on its framework that address the different needs of learners, such as United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4 and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, which caters to the needs of the disadvantaged and marginalized learners.

Lifelong learning is distinguished from the concept of continuing education in the sense that it has a broader scope. Unlike the latter, which is oriented towards adult education developed for the needs of schools and industries, this type of learning is concerned with the development of human potential in individuals generally.

Pedagogy

Lifelong learning focuses on holistic education and it has two dimensions, namely, lifelong and broad options for learning. These indicate learning that integrates traditional education proposals and modern learning opportunities. It also entails an emphasis on encouraging people to learn how to learn and to select content, process, and methodologies that pursue autodidacticism. Some authors highlight that lifelong learning is founded on a different conceptualization of knowledge and its acquisition. It is explained not only as the possession of discrete pieces of information or factual knowledge but also as a generalized scheme of making sense of new events, including the use of tactics in order to effectively deal with them.

Reflective learning and critical thinking can help a learner to become more self-reliant through learning how to learn, thus making them better able to direct, manage, and control their own learning process. Sipe studied experimentally "open" teachers and found that they valued self-directed learning, collaboration, reflection, and challenge; risk taking in their learning was seen as an opportunity, not a threat. Dunlap and Grabinger say that for higher education students to be lifelong learners, they must develop a capacity for self-direction, metacognition awareness, and a disposition toward learning.

The Delors Report proposed an integrated vision of education based on two key paradigms: lifelong learning and the four pillars of learning. It argued that formal education tends to emphasize the acquisition of knowledge to the detriment of other types of learning essential to sustaining human development, stressing the need to think of learning over the lifespan, and to address how everyone can develop relevant skills, knowledge and attitudes for work, citizenship and personal fulfillment. The four pillars of learning are:

1. Learning to know
2. Learning to do
3. Learning to be
4. Learning to live together

The four pillars of learning were envisaged against the backdrop of the notion of 'lifelong learning', itself an adaptation of the concept of 'lifelong education' as initially conceptualized in the 1972 Faure publication Learning to Be.

Educational technology

The emergence of internet technologies has great potential to support lifelong learning endeavors, allowing for informal day-to-day learning.

Application

In India and elsewhere, the "University of the Third Age" (U3A) is an almost spontaneous movement comprising autonomous learning groups accessing the expertise of their own members in the pursuit of knowledge and shared experience.

In Sweden, the concept of study circles, an idea launched almost a century ago, still represents a large portion of the adult education provision. The concept has since spread, and for instance, is a common practice in Finland as well.

Formal administrative units devoted to lifelong learning exist in a number of universities. For example, the 'Academy of Lifelong Learning' is an administrative unit at the University of Delaware. Another example is the Jagiellonian University Extension (Wszechnica Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego), which is one of the most comprehensive Polish centers for lifelong learning (open learning, organizational learning, community learning).

In recent years, 'lifelong learning' has been adopted in the UK as an umbrella term for post-compulsory education that falls outside of the UK higher education system—further education, community education, work-based learning and similar voluntary, public sector and commercial settings.

In Canada, the federal government's Lifelong Learning Plan allows Canadian residents to withdraw funds from their Registered Retirement Savings Plan to help pay for lifelong learning, but the funds can only be used for formal learning programs at designated educational institutions.

Priorities for lifelong and lifewide learning have different priorities in different countries, some placing more emphasis on economic development and some on social development. For example, the policies of China, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Malaysia promote lifelong learning in a human resource development perspective. The governments of these countries have done much to foster training and development whilst encouraging entrepreneurship.

Aging

In a 2012 New York Times article, Arthur Toga, a professor of neurology and director of the laboratory of neuroimaging at the University of California, Los Angeles, stated that "Exercising the brain may preserve it, forestalling mental decline." Some research has shown that people with higher cognitive reserves, attained through lifelong learning, were better able to avoid the cognitive decline that often accompanies age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Even when subjects had dementia, some studies show that they were able to persist in a normal mental state for a longer period than subjects who were not involved in some type of lifelong learning.

Studies so far have lacked large, randomized controlled trials. In "Education and Alzheimer's Disease: A Review of Recent International Epidemiological Studies" published in 1997 in the journal Aging and Mental Health, C.J. Gilleard, finds fault with other studies linking education to cognitive decline. Among other factors, he suggests that variations in lifestyles could be responsible for an increase in vascular dementia, as blue-collar type workers may be less inclined to work in industries that provide mentally challenging situations.