Smart Cities Flashcards
What percentage of the world currently lives in urban areas and what is the trend
Fifty-five percent of the world’s population currently lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 68% by midcentury, according to the UN-Habitat’s World Cities Report 2022. The trend toward greater urbanization puts pressure on governments to ensure that cities remain livable, sustainable, and vibrant.
Energy Atlas project
Through its Energy Atlas project, Amsterdam gathers and analyzes energy data from buildings, infrastructure, and its transportation system to reduce energy consumption and promote the adoption of renewable energy
What is a national smart-city strategy
A national smart-city strategy is essentially a master plan that guides the evolution of smart cities within a country. It typically includes a vision, core values, and strategic goals, as well as a roadmap outlining the execution and expected impact. The national strategies that exist usually sync with the country’s broader goals—ambitions such as reducing carbon emissions, streamlining transportation flows, or creating a circular economy. National smart-city strategies can also lead to the creation of new economic sectors and aid with the skilling and reskilling of workers. In addition, they can improve satisfaction among the users of government services and increase digital equity among residents and other constituents.
The following six steps can help national, regional, and local governments achieve the full potential of digital technologies in creating smart cities.
Assess the status quo. National government leaders should first conduct a gap analysis of the current smart-city strategies to identify the plan, resources, and funding that each city needs, given its unique characteristics. The analysis should also include linkages to both national and city priorities to ensure alignment and an assessment of the current technology providers and industry players in order to establish the best ways to collaborate with the private sector
Focus on where the national government can add value. National smart-city strategies should be structured around topics that can be best influenced at the national level. Such topics typically affect multiple industries and usually include regulatory policies, standards, funding, R&D, and digital infrastructure, as well as an assessment of each city’s labor pool.
Offer financial support and know-how. National governments should have a dedicated budget for their smart-city strategy. It should provide the funding that’s needed on a national level as well as the financial support that’s necessary on a city and regional level to implement the smart-city agenda.
Create measurable goals. National smart-city strategies are, by nature, broad and ambitious. To ensure long-term success, the defined ambition and scope should be tied to specific KPIs and concrete actions that occur in stages. This allows for the kind of monitoring that creates greater clarity, transparency, and oversight—and, in turn, generates greater impact.
Pick an implementation strategy. Governments should develop a smart-city implementation strategy to ensure that they set the right goals—and that the new services and solution are adopted to drive the targeted outcomes. However, sometimes taking a top-down approach can miss the mark if its needs assessments don’t match local needs. This approach can also err if it approves vendors that lack the technical capabilities to create solutions that meet citizens’ true needs. For these reasons, leaders may want to consider elements of a bottom-up approach, created with broad participation from citizens and other private-sector and government stakeholders.
Refresh the strategy regularly. The burgeoning smart-city movement must adapt to change, with agendas and roadmaps designed accordingly. That means a national strategy should be agile so that it is able to constantly integrate new trends and face challenges, such as a pandemic. It should also integrate lessons from a progressive smart-services rollout and adoption. We are seeing on-going changes in work patterns and emerging technologies as examples of the big challenges for cities—challenges that require coordinated attention on the national level.
