Topic: smart-city-development

Over the past years, the smart city concept has reached a state of mainstream acknowledgment throughout the world. However, several important aspects are subject to constant debate:

• What is the best or a suitable smart city definition?
• Does the smart city concept apply to cities only, or does it include rural or smaller communities?
• Is the smart city concept technology- or human-centric?
• What are the key success factors of leading smart cities?
• What are the strategic governance approaches?
• What can be derived from best practices in smart cities development?

In our review on becoming a smart city, we will cover all of these topics that relate to the smart city evolution and defining the term smart city from a practical perspective.

Michal Lakomski is the Mayor's Proxy for Smart City in the city of Poznan in the Greater Poland region. As the Mayor’s Smart City Proxy, and as the Director of Digitalization and Cybersecurity Department for Poznan City Hall, his role involves supervising and overseeing the city’s digital transformation and overall evolution into a modern smart city.

Under his leadership, Poznan has already made an impression as one of the most exciting and dynamic cities in Europe, embracing new technologies, supporting innovation, and putting its citizens first.

Urban data platforms (UDPs) are helping smart cities to evolve. These platforms serve as the supporting pillars for many smart city applications. They can map, combine, and store data from a wide range of sources, and process them to help form practical solutions to city-wide problems. Urban data platforms are an important part of any smart city ecosystem, taking data from government sources, private enterprises, NGOs, and members of the public, to help provide data-driven solutions that benefit everyone.

On the ­8^th of September 2020, Horst Seehofer, Federal Minister of the Interior, Building and Community, announced the decision that 32 Smart City Model Projects will be funded with around 350 million Euros in the second round of the national funding programme "Smart City Model Projects". In the first round of last year, 13 Smart Cities were selected and funded with the aim of accelerating urban digital transformation in Germany.

Around the world, cities are growing. Already, roughly 180,000 people move into cities every day. By 2015, the UN estimates that there will be 22 metropolitan areas with populations of more than 10 million people. Growing urban populations mean more costs for cities - from increasing energy use to overstrained public services - but they also provide a stimulus for innovation. After all, we can’t infinitely expand outwards and upwards. Instead, we need to find ways to be more ‘efficiently urban’: in other words, we need to be smarter with how we use our resources, time and capital.

By 2050, it is estimated that roughly 70% of the world’s population will live in cities. With more citizens to serve and a climate that is rapidly degrading, public service efficiency and effective resource usage are becoming pressing issues for cities.

Big tech companies talk a lot about how the solutions to these issues can be found through their innovative new technologies; however, while technical tools are indeed necessary, cities should ensure that their smart city strategy is holistic, multifaceted and, most importantly, citizen-centric, if they want their efforts to bring fruitful results. A contextually adapted and citizen-centric approach, using both human and technological resources, can bring multiple benefits for municipalities, particularly those that are struggling with specific problems - such as inefficient waste management systems, lack of civic participation, or traffic and congestion. In this article, we take a closer look at the advantages of smart city development and lay out the six core benefits of smart cities.

"Nothing in the world is more simple and more cheap than making cities that provide better for people" - Jan Gehl, founding partner of Gehl Architects, in an interview in 2013.

When we talk about smart cities, the technological terms dominate. We refer to how big data, the Internet of Things, sensors, and automation, among other things, will change and innovate our cities, making life better for urban citizens. As Ignasi Capdevila and Matías I. Zarlenga highlight, however, in their study 'Smart City or smart citizens? The Barcelona case', when we think of smart cities from the perspective of new technologies alone, ‘citizens are often considered as users, testers, or consumers rather than producers and sources of creativity and innovation’.

On October 23, Huawei and Navigant Consulting have released the 2nd "UK Smart Cities Index - Assessment of Strategy and Execution of UK’s leading Smart Cities". The report features an assessment of 20 UK cities in their efforts of utilizing technology to address urban challenges and to seize development opportunities.

Bristol and London are the UK's smartest cities

Surprisingly, Bristol has been announced as leading smart city in the UK, followed by London. The two cities are spearheading the movement, well ahead of the other 18 cities that were analyzed in the report. 

Over the past seven years, the smart city concept has changed fundamentally in terms of the approaches that cities or communities have chosen for urban transformation. Driven by technology providers in the early years, governments as leaders of the smart city movement have later understood that technology is only the enabler for reaching governmental, economic and societal goals.

Today, smart city strategies still consider technology as an enabler, but governments have learned that top-down initiatives or a master planned approach are not the determinants of success. Drivers for success are collaborative and participative citizen- or human-centric approaches. If a city or community wants to become smarter, it should take the needs and problems of its customers – citizens, businesses, workforce/commuters, entrepreneurs, academia and non-profit organizations – into account.