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Andorra
Andorra

How Tiny Andorra Became A Major Hub In Smart Cities Movement

Andorra is playing a big part these days in the field of urban studies
Andorra is playing a big part these days in the field of urban studies
Basil Venitis
AndorraSmarter CitiesFutureWORLDCRUNCHSocietyEL PERIÒDIC D'ANDORRASourcesCountries
Giacomo Tognini

ANDORRA LA VELLA — Perched in the Pyrenees between Spain and France, Andorra — with fewer than 80,000 inhabitants — is as small as it is remote. And yet, the European micro-nation is playing a big part these days in the field of urban studies, the Andorran daily El Periòdicreports.

Researchers with the City Science Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have made the country a hub for research on smart city concepts that can improve the world's cities. And while that may seem a bit counterintuitive given Andorra's size and location, the MIT team thinks the the principality is actually the perfect place for a "living lab" — a small city where urban innovators can experiment with ideas and concepts for urban planning.

Perched in the Pyrenees between Spain and France, Andorra is as small as it is remote — Photo: Keith Ellwood

Andorra is a developed country that draws millions of visitors a year, but its lack of airports and rail stations makes it heavily car-dependent. These conditions make it exceptionally interesting for MIT researchers, who are seeking solutions to the problem, such as an ultra-lightweight autonomous vehicle that operates in bicycle lanes.

Officials from the principality first met with the City Science Initiative in 2014. Together they decided to make Andorra the world's first "smart" country through the use of big data to drive urban innovation. The most notable result of the partnership is CityScope Andorra, a small-scale 3D augmented reality model of the country designed by MIT's local lab.

The detailed model allows planners to test scenarios on everything from how many parks to build to the potential impact of tourists. The Andorran government is using the platform to redevelop a district in the capital and hopes to use it to analyze and map the country's economic potential.

Beyond the cooperation with MIT, the country's investment promotion agency recently unveiled a new national innovation space that seeks to attract more investors and researchers to do business there. "Everyone wishes they could buy an Andorra," MIT's project coordinator in Andorra, Luís Alonso, told El Periòdic.

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EL PERIÒDIC D'ANDORRA
El Periòdic d'Andorra is the leading newspaper in Andorra, published in Catalan. Founded in 1997, it has a circulation of around 10,000 and is owned by the Barcelona-based publishing group Grupo Zeta.
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Parenting

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Kelly Sikkema
SocietyEL ESPECTADORSourcesfeatured-postColombiaCountries
Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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