Prelude The post-war years (1945) leading to 1971 was coined the “golden period of innovation”. This was a period marked with innovative technological inventions parallel with rapid economic growth. Towards the end of this “golden period”, in 1969 to be specific, some significant events happened that changed the course of culture, science and technology.

Prelude: The post-war years (1945) leading to 1971 was coined the “golden period of innovation”. This was a period marked with innovative technological inventions parallel with rapid economic growth. Towards the end of this “golden period”, in 1969 to be specific, some significant events happened that changed the course of culture, science and technology. On Jan 30, Beatles played their last show and on August 5th, the massive Woodstock music festival held in Bethel, New York paved the entry of rock and roll and spread of hippies ideals throughout America. On July 20, the world watched two brave humans, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, to walk on the moon. Lastly, on October 1969, the first computer-to-computer connection or host-to-host communication network was made successfully between Professor Leonard Kleinrock’s team at UCLA and the other team at Stanford Research Institute. Even though this success was not celebrated with big fanfare, this small step marked the beginning of today’s internet technology.
You have examined and discussed various factors that attributed to the “golden period of innovation” and its decline in your Mid-Term Essay. In this Final Report for SCI 50 Course, you are going to propose and project how current technology can be wisely and socially adopted to transform city into a ‘smart city’ that will serve the needs of its resident (*You) in the near future of 2050.
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The Report: My Smart City in 2050
Question: It is rather unorthodox to label City as a “Technology”. A city is not a simple one piece technology like a vacuum cleaner but a complex technological system or ecosystem (biologically speaking) with numerous technical components like infrastructures e.g., roads, and parks; social institutions e.g., families, city hall, and schools etc. A city without its smart residents is like another historical “ghost town” along Hwy 66. Therefore the animate actors/actants interacting with the inanimate boundaries and infrastructures makes city a socio-technical system. A technological system can only work effectively to provide a solution when their components interact. I have included a reference that introduces the concept of a smart socio-technical City in this Page.
Thus the Question for your Report is: In what ways can the components in this mega socio-technical system interact to yield better solutions in terms of quality of life, social services, infrastructures, and sustainability for your near future of 2050?
The writing directives:
Begin writing your Report after you have found a suitable named urban U.S. city. Choose a city that you are familiar with, a city you dream of retiring into or your current city of residence. Do not return an essay with a fictitious city not found on the U.S. map. Therefore, SimCityTM is not a City for this Report
You must position yourself in a specific age group when you crossed into 2050 e.g., as a senior or a middle age person
This is not a science-fiction report. Your technical infrastructures should be technologies that are currently in market, or in development. Hence, flying cars, flying saucers or deep sea commute tunnels for daily transportation are not realistic for this Report purpose but perhaps for your SimCityTM games
Importantly, you need to illustrate and explain how this smart city could provide solutions for (i) better quality of life, (ii) social services, (iii) infrastructures and (iv) sustainably in 2050
The formatting directives:
The Report must include a Cover Page consisting of your Name, Course Title, Report Title, Golden Gate University and Instructor’s Name (not arranged in order)
The essay must include an Introductory and Concluding Paragraph
The essay must include following formatting: 1.5 line spacing, font size 10 – 11, writing between 10 to 20 pages (excluding Cover Page)
The essay must be properly cited throughout the Essay. Unless you have conducted an in-depth study or analysis of a certain idea, you will need citation to support your idea else, it will be deemed speculative and fictitious. However, if you infer your speculation based on a cited reference, your speculation will be deemed “original” and “exciting” in my eyes
Include a bibliographic page
At the very last dedicated page of Report (not counted towards page limit), include a Grading Rubric Box with following components:
Formatting
Essay Structure
Essay Flow
Grammar
Arguments
Citation
The grading directives:
The essay will be graded based on the components in the Grading Rubric Box above
The content of the Essay will be weighted by the quality of your interpretation and discussion of a city as a socio-technological system
You may also refer to our reading: Hughes (1987) The evolution of large technological systems for some reading reference to how a socio-technological system can be discussed
The ‘smart’ component refers largely to the “technology” component. Please beware of turning the essay into a technological determinism
There are plenty of resources in the Web (many relevant case studies with detailed discussions) but the challenge is to position these technological ideas that would suit your needs as presented in the question in your named city