IEX 169: How Smart Are Our Cities?
Smart is a feature. What benefits are we looking to deliver?
In October, IMD Smart City Observatory published their annual Smart City Index. The study uses feedback from 120 people from each of 118 cities, for infrastructure and technology led services , across 5 areas - health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunity, and governance. The study also considers the Human Development Index of the economy that the City is part of. Singapore tops this list again, with Zurich, Oslo, Taipei, and Lausanne making up the top 5.
London, for example, ranks 22 on the list. A closer look at London suggests that affordable housing is on of the urgent areas that need attention, followed by air pollution, security, and traffic congestion. Education and Healthcare area areas where London scores better.
This is a very robust methodology, but it's not beyond question. The first fundamental question is whether a one size fits all approach works. Yes, all cities have common challenges such as congestion, traffic management, safety, and housing. But beyond this, the needs of Singapore and the needs of London will always be different. For for a start London needs to manage heating and cooling over a wider range of temperatures, and a significant volume of working population that goes in and out of the city each day. Singapore needs to manage its drainage, and rainwater harvesting with round the year rain. Wikipedia lists a number of different methodologies for the worlds most liveable cities.
I've realised that 'smart' as applied to homes and cities is a loaded adjective. For people working in technology, the word pre-supposes benefits. We intrinsically apply a range of positive outcomes to the connotation of smart. Better management, data driven decisions, improved infrastructure, are just some of them. But objectively, smart is a feature, not a benefit. So we need to identify the specific benefits we seek from our smart homes and cities for them to be designed and delivered. Some of the most critical areas today are sustainability, age friendly, mobility, resilience, human capital, and digital governance.
Sustainability is a universal challenge. From energy usage to water consumption, and from waste management to emissions control. The IMD study picks out congestion, but there are plenty of other areas to consider. The WeForum site lists a number of smart initiatives contributing to greener cities, including vertical forests, smart commuting, and 15 and 10 minute cities. London ranks well for sustainable transport within Europe. Vancouver is looking to fund its sustainability initiatives via a bond, which may be something other cities pick up on.
Age friendliness is something most European cities are targeting, as the population of Europe ages faster than the rest of the world. Interestingly, this publication on age friendly cities across the world from 2007 doesn't mention the word smart even once. A more recent article from the Guardian does better, calling out smart toilets, stroke prevention and other areas where technology is making cities smarter. Today there are a numerous ways in which smart technologies can make cities better for older citizens.
Mobility is a vast subject by itself, and deserves a dedicated piece, but when it comes to smart cities, the reinvention of urban transport is very much under way. TCS recently won a contract to modernise London's taxi and private vehicle hire system. I see electric scooters becoming more and more popular thanks to government trials, even though there's a lot of evidence of accidents and potential risk. There's clearly a need for a legal framework within which these can operate.
Resilience is a broader subject and also covers many aspects. Cities are increasingly subject to a range of risks - from floods and fires, to terrorist attacks, crime, and also infrastructure failures - electricity black outs or fuel shortages. Resilience is all about building in the social and civic infrastructure to be able to handle these scenarios without breaking down. Resilience is also an amorphous concept which is hard to pin down into specific tangible capabilities. Smart infrastructure and city command centres will be critical going forward to handle these unforeseen scenarios. Edinburgh has kicked this off already, with CGI. In future, cyber security will become a critical component of smart city resilience.
Personally, though, one of the most intangible values of cities is the human capital. Manifested as dense networks, cities are the hubs of conversations and interactions that lead to amazing ideas coming to life. Over the past fortnight, I've seen the value of this in shaping a project that can instantly plug into expertise, data, programs, and systems that are all part of the same dense network. Many cities promote this, such as Helsinki and Dublin. I love the Helsinki vision of giving every citizen an extra hour every day. On the other hand, there’s evidence that many major cities are failing working women, across a range of issues, from safety to equality, and maternity support.
The projections are that by 2050, 70% of the worlds population will be living in cities. We stand to therefore benefit the vast majority of humans if we can design smart cities to improve lives. Here's Theo Blackwell, MBE, Chief Digital Officer for London, on London's future technology charter.
See you next week!
Reading This Week
Future (and past) Of Work: Why the Luddites loved remote work (Medium)
Future Strategy: For a post digital world, Greg Satell writes about collaboration, big vision, and skills transformation as central pillars of future strategy. (Medium)
Climate Crisis: Bezos, Rockerfeller and others commit to raising over $100bn for climate change in poor countries, but still nowhere near what’s needed. (Bloomberg)
Digital Advertising: Still lacking in clarity (Economist)
Brain Power: Targeted brain stimulation along with AI can improve self control and mental flexibility. (Science Daily)
Future Human: Can feminist robots challenge our biases? (IEEE Spectrum)
Season of Lights: As we’ve just had Halloween, Diwali, and are about to hit Guy Fawkes night, here’s a quick history of fireworks for your perusal.