Chicago seeking 'smart-city' tech solutions to improve city life

Argonne Laboratory's Array of Things project
The  "Array of Things" project at the Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont on April 4, 2016.

Kathy Bergen, Chicago Tribune

Come late June, city electricians are expected to start strapping beehive-shaped sensor boxes to municipal light poles — environmental Fitbits for neighborhoods, essentially.

How's the air quality? Where does rainwater pool? Where do air temperatures spike?

The 14-inch-high cylinders filled with sensors and cameras — developed by computer scientists and designers at Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago — should shed light on stubborn urban problems — everything from asthma clusters and flood-prone intersections to so-called "heat islands," densely developed corners of the city that trap heat. Ultimately, the data should lead to affordable, energy-efficient solutions to those problems and others.

The project, dubbed the Array of Things, is the most aggressive element of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's push to transform Chicago into "the most data-driven government in the world," as his top tech lieutenant recently put it. But the emerging quiver of public-private experiments aimed at honing a high-tech image for the city is fraught with risk. 


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Chicago bets on 'smart city' projects
Chicago, a relative newcomer in the so-called smart city game, is playing catch-up to established global leaders such as Barcelona, Copenhagen, London and Singapore.
Chicago, a relative newcomer in the so-called smart city game, is playing catch-up to established global leaders such as Barcelona, Copenhagen, London and Singapore — cities that already excel in harnessing technology to run more efficiently.

But already the city's nascent efforts to collect environmental data are sparking concerns about further erosion of individual privacy in a city already outfitted with police cameras, red light cameras, in-store cameras and public transit cameras. And, perhaps most critically, some observers question whether the collection and analysis of data will lead to meaningful improvements to urban life, as advocates suggest, or just enrich big tech vendors.

"How do we connect these abstract, big-picture, big-data initiatives to the needs of the residents of Chicago who are struggling under a failure to fund education and under a police force that thwarts the will of the people?" asked Daniel X. O'Neil, executive director of Smart Chicago Collaborative, a civic group that aims to improve residents' lives through technology.

Even for a city like Barcelona, widely viewed as the smart-city poster child, "the jury is very much still out," said Adie Tomer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. "If you are advanced in your investment in digital infrastructure … does that lead to a difference in economic performance? Does it drive more jobs? Does it make it a better place to live?

"There is no research on this," he said. "Not even close." 

ct-smart-cities-sensors-20160419
A selection of some of the sensor devices used in Barcelona to increase efficiency and convenience.
The potential of the smart city concept, however, intrigues municipal leaders and tech executives around the world. Scores of city delegations trek to Barcelona each year to see how the ancient seaside capital of Catalonia branded itself as the world's leading smart city.

Nearly hidden among the captivating Gaudi architectural gems and tourists sipping cava at sidewalk cafes are an array of sensors. Some let drivers know where street parking is available, others trigger park irrigation systems when soil dries out or inform police when an outdoor gathering turns rowdy.

A retooled bus system uses natural gas/electric hybrids and solar panels on shelters, which also are equipped with Wi-Fi, USB ports and interactive screens with tourist information. LED streetlights with motion sensors lower energy use. And the city hosts an extensive network of Wi-Fi hot spots. In all, more than 20 smart-city programs are under way.

"Barcelona is and was a showcase," said Juan Blanco, business development director for southern Europe at Cisco, an early partner in Barcelona's efforts. While the city represents a small slice of business for the Silicon Valley networking giant, it serves as a living showroom for potential clients around the world, he said.

Chicago and its corporate and academic partners on smart-city initiatives hanker to play the same sort of "test bed" role on this side of the Atlantic. "Chicago, like so many other cities, is facing some truly intractable problems that can be solved not by existing technologies but by new technologies that are being invented now," said Brenna Berman, the city's chief information officer. 

Brenna Berman
Brenna Berman, Chicago's chief information officer, on Feb. 25, 2015. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)
 As Adam Hecktman, Microsoft's director of technology and civic innovation for Chicago, put it: "If we can solve problems here in Chicago, then we can scale that to other cities."

Microsoft is a partner on a key collaboration here, City Digital, which in September launched two pilot projects. One uses sensors to test "green" ways to curtail urban flooding. The other uses sonar technology to produce virtual maps of the mess of cables and pipes beneath the city's streets, a potentially valuable tool for construction crews. The endeavor, part of the city's year-old UI Labs research consortium, is housed in a former window factory in the Goose Island industrial hub.

City Digital hopes its flood-control findings will help guide the city as it invests $50 million over five years on infrastructure designed to reduce the flow of pollution into the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, said Steve Fifita, executive director of City Digital.

"That's exactly why we're doing this kind of pilot — to inform the decision," he said, gazing out of the lab's soaring front windows as rain fell on a lightly planted mound of dirt, or "bioswale," that was being monitored for its ability to absorb and filter precipitation.

Chicago is hardly alone among American cities rolling out smart-city initiatives, though observers say it is one of the most aggressive. New York is moving on multiple fronts, including plans to turn 7,500 payphone booths into Wi-Fi hot spots. Boston offers a cellphone app for reporting neighborhood problems and is installing solar-powered park benches that function as outdoor charging stations and collectors of data on air quality and noise.

In September, President Barack Obama's administration committed $160 million for data-driven efforts across the country to reduce traffic congestion, fight crime, foster economic growth, manage the effects of climate change and improve city services. Chicago's Array of Things project was among the recipients, with a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. 

Sensors at Argonne
A sensor box testing unit is placed on a building as part of the Array of Things project at Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont on April 4, 2016. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
To a large extent, the U.S. is playing catch-up to Europe and Asia, earlier adopters of the smart-city trend, which was fostered by IBM and other tech multinationals during the recession, when corporate business was tailing off.

"By its nature, it's a conservative market," said Eric Woods, research director for Navigant Research, which tracks the clean-tech sector. "Cities are not flooded with money, so cities either have to find additional funding or new models that allow them to invest in these technologies, like energy savings or public-private partnerships."

Navigant estimates the smart-city market will be worth $12.1 billion this year, rising to $27.5 billion annually by 2023. What it will be worth to cities and their residents remains an open question.

In Barcelona, for instance, the economy has improved since smart-city efforts began in the recessionary years, but much of the progress is tied to broader trends in Spain and the European Union, said Jonathan Wareham, dean of faculty and research at ESADE Business & Law Schools at Ramon Llull University in Barcelona. "Is there a correlation between smart cities and economic recovery? Yes. Is there a causal link? I would be more doubtful about that.

"If you ask someone in London," Wareham continued, "if they are planning a trip to Barcelona because it's a smart city, they would say, 'What?'"

Still, Wareham believes smart-city initiatives hold promise if they are tackling serious problems rather than taking a "cute" path to apps for tourists. "Some of it's just bells and whistles and gimmicky things, like knowing when the bus is going to come or knowing how far down the street this cafe is. It's in the nice-to-have category but nothing that the mobile app industry isn't addressing anyway," he said.

Chicago appears to be taking the more sober route, he said.

In addition to the Array of Things project, which will roll out 500 monitoring devices between this summer and the end of 2017, and City Digital, which plans more research into infrastructure-related issues, the city of Chicago has used data analytics to streamline its restaurant inspection and rat-baiting programs.

"You can use predictive analytics anywhere that cities have a shortage of resources, which is everywhere," said Berman, who is commissioner of the city's Department of Innovation and Technology, which employs two data engineers and gets pro bono help from corporations such as Allstate.

Much of the smart-city work underway in cash-strapped Chicago wouldn't have been feasible without outside help. The Array of Things project relies on its $3.1 million National Science Foundation grant and about $2 million in internal research funding from Argonne, with the city providing sites for the monitors and electricians to mount the devices. 

Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont on April 4, 2016. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
The City Digital projects at UI Labs, meanwhile, are supported by corporate membership fees as well as project assistance from corporate and academic partners, with the city providing test sites and some technical assistance. The future of smart-city work depends on such collaborations holding up and growing, which is not a guaranteed outcome.

One major challenge will be how to handle the intellectual property that is developed, Siemens executive Dave Hopping told civic and business leaders at a City Club luncheon last summer. Siemens is among the corporate and academic partners who work together on City Digital projects, with the aim of devising technologies that can be commercialized.

"You bring a lot of companies to the table, some big, some small, and you're going to create something new," he said. "Who owns that? How do you share in the success of that? That's one of the risk topics if we don't figure that out."

Fifita, of City Digital, said those arrangements are made on a project-by-project basis.

A second issue is whether residents will welcome the Array of Things monitoring devices in their neighborhoods, particularly since they include a downward-facing camera that will track not just flooding, but pedestrian and vehicular traffic. 

Array of Things
One of two data sensor nodes in the city used in 2013 to collect the atmospherics and movement of people hangs on the exterior of the Logan Center at the University of Chicago.  (Anthony Souffle / Chicago Tribune)
In an effort to protect privacy, the cameras are designed to capture shapes but not distinguishing details. Data will be gleaned from the images within the individual monitoring device, then the images will be destroyed, said Argonne senior computer scientist and project leader Charlie Catlett. Any additional sensors or cameras added to the monitoring boxes in the future will have to be reviewed by a National Science Foundation-funded independent panel, he said.

But a prominent privacy advocate remains concerned.

"Smart cities is a very double-edged concept," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and adviser to Chicago's project. "The idea is to capture more data and utilize more data about what's going on in a city. By definition, unless you exclude people, that is the same as conducting more surveillance."

It is critical that the city devise a strong privacy policy and clear governance structure, he said. "Who says 'no' to the cops if they want to do something against the privacy principle?" 

 Lane Tech students work on Array of Things-related projects
Students at Lane Tech High School devise sensor kits to gather data on school life  as part of a six-week curriculum that ties into the city’s Array of Things environmental sensor initiative. 
The city will unveil a privacy policy, a governance structure and a data management policy in mid- to late May, Berman said, adding that there will be public hearings before they are finalized.

But the city already is working to get the word out, with its first beachhead at Lane Tech High School, where nearly 150 computer science students are building their own sensing devices — part of a six-week curriculum devised by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Urban Center for Computation and Data at the University of Chicago and Argonne. The plan is to share the program with other schools.

In a lab filled with laser cutters, 3-D carvers and power tools, groups of students hunch over small wooden or acrylic boxes filled with sensors and wires, figuring out how to track the temperature and humidity outside the pool's door, the gases present in the lunchroom or the traffic in the staircases.

For Kameron Jackson, a sophomore from the Kenwood neighborhood who aspires to be an engineer, the project has been an eye-opener.

"It was more difficult than I imagined because there's a lot of errors you encounter along the way that you really don't prepare for," Jackson said. "You've got to be quick on your feet to assess the situation and figure out a solution." 

Sensor restart
Lane Tech students Rafael Trinidad, from left, Misael Jaimes and Konrad Rula restart their humidity, temperature, hydrogen, carbon and methane sensor in the school's lunchroom on April 7, 2016. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)
Those lessons likely will apply to Chicago as well as it pursues its smart-city strategies. O'Neil, of the Smart Chicago Collaborative, suggests the city and its partners keep their eyes on one overarching goal.

"I find immense value in what they are doing (but) I continue to drive them, and drive all of us and anyone in the smart-cities movement, to work harder at finding out how we can make lives better," he said. "I continue to have consternation at how all this fits together."

kbergen@tribpub.com