smart city business plan

Econsult Solutions, Inc.

“The smart city was the wrong idea pitched in the wrong way to the wrong people. It never answered the question: ‘How is it tangibly, materially going to affect the way people live, work, and play?”

– dan hill, professor and innovator-in-residence, ucl institute for innovation and public purpose.

As technological, demographic, and economic shifts redefine urban centers, local government and business leaders need an updated vision and business plan for the future, with the performance gains to be achieved. To provide them with the required decision support and ROI analytics, ThoughtLab is launching a ground-breaking research program in conjunction with a coalition of organizations that have a stake in the cities of the future.

Unlike other research on this topic, our economists will produce compelling, evidence-based research that provides a clear business case for investment–not just in digital technology, but in essential infrastructure, optimal land use patterns, human capital, and civic institutions.

We are now setting up a coalition of sponsors and experts across industries; contact us to find out how you can get in on the ground floor and gain exclusive access to the full research results.

Our study will address key questions facing today’s business leaders and local government

What are the characteristics of the successful smart city of the future?
In what ways will smarter cities of the future create value for consumers, businesses, and the local government in the future?
How will technological, demographic, and market shifts transform local consumer behaviors and business strategies?
Do smart cities need to get smarter? What are the applications for AI, blockchain, and other new game-changing technologies?
How can cities ensure their future position as future hubs of talent, business, and innovation?
What technological solutions can cities apply to improve economic opportunity and living standards for all citizens?
How can smart cities fund their future plans? Which innovative financing solutions will work best in the future?

Want to Build a Smart City? Here Are Some Strategies That Work

April 19, 2019 • 23 min read.

Collaborative platforms, sustainability, public-private partnerships and data analytics are critical for developing smart and inclusive cities, notes TCS’s Seeta Hariharan.

Public Policy

Seeta Hariharan from Tata Consultancy Services shares insights and best practices that can benefit civic leaders who want to build smart cities.

The global smart-city movement, which has been around for more than two decades, has gone through three phases of evolution. It initially focused on technology-led solutions to challenges. Then came a citizen-centric, collaborative approach in the second phase. Now, the features of smart cities have expanded further to include safety, happiness and well-being.

Europe is ahead of the U.S. on the smart-city curve, but it has the advantages of having smaller countries and pan-Europe initiatives that emphasize a cohesive approach. Smart-city mayors need to focus on prioritizing projects that give them the most bang for their money. They also must find funding through innovative ways and create public-private partnerships. In addition, they need to spend resources wisely through efficient and creative procurement processes.

Seeta Hariharan, general manager and group head at the digital software & solutions group at Tata Consultancy Services, has for many years had a ringside seat in the conception, planning and execution of smart-city projects across the globe. Knowledge at Wharton and TCS recently collaborated in producing a special report titled Smart Cities: A Toolkit for Leaders . In a recent interview with Knowledge at Wharton, she shared insights and best practices that can benefit civic leaders who want to build smart cities.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Knowledge at Wharton: Let us start with a basic question. What is a smart city? What did the concept mean originally and how has it evolved over time?

Seeta Hariharan: Between 2002 and 2015, the number of smart cities across the globe quadrupled from approximately 21 to 88. By 2017, some 178 cities had embarked on 250 smart-city projects, from Melbourne to Copenhagen to San Francisco. These data suggest that there is rapid urbanization across the globe, and there are leaders in the municipalities and cities that are trying to figure out how to cope with it.

The definition of smart cities has evolved over the last couple of decades. In the first phase – when smart cities started to be discussed in the public forum – technology players looked at some of the challenges that were created by urbanization. So, they said, “Let me create point product solutions addressing the various challenges,” related to parking, mobility, water management, lighting, and so on. (Point product solutions refer to those that address specific needs rather than an integrated approach.)

However, as many city leaders lamented, technology players didn’t quite understand how the city would consume those solutions. So came the second phase, when the city leaders said, “Let me take control of the technology agenda for my city.” However, two things were lacking: collaboration across the various departments of the city; and keeping citizens at the center of everything that they do.

Now we are in the third phase of the smart-city definition. City leaders are saying, “I want to create cities that are livable, that focus on the well-being and happiness of my citizens.” It is a citizen-centric agenda that is evolving. The capital city of Iceland – Reykjavik – developed a program right after the 2008 financial crisis called the “Better Reykjavik Program” – a platform for citizens to participate in policy-making. Other examples include San Antonio, with its highway signboards, and Beijing, with an “I Love Beijing” app that can be used by citizens to report power outages, broken street lamps or potholes to the government.

“Health care disparity doesn’t come by itself. It’s also because of the disparities in education, housing and food access.”

Knowledge at Wharton: How could smart cities provide platforms that enable collaboration between different groups of stakeholders?

Hariharan: If you start by being citizen-centric, that provides the right motivation to drive the right behaviors and take the right actions. Collaboration is absolutely needed across the various departments of the city, but it is also needed with the citizens and private enterprises.

If you consider, for example, the linkage between water management and traffic management, or that between city management and city commerce, it becomes apparent as to why such a collaboration is essential. If there is a water pipe breakage in one part of the city, you want to divert traffic to avoid traffic jams or congestion in that part.

Similarly, when a city hosts, say, a football match or a popular music concert, it will enhance its safety and security measures, but what is not obvious is how that relates to city commerce. Retailers will do well if they can increase foot traffic in the areas where such special events happen. It also increases tax revenue for the city. So, collaboration across the various city departments is essential, and a unified platform will drive that collaboration.

One example is Arizona’s Institute for Digital Progress. They have a unified leadership structure that drives collaboration across various municipalities, authorities, academic institutions like Arizona State University, as well as private sector companies like Google, Uber, Cisco and Intel, in order to tackle their traffic congestion problems.

Knowledge at Wharton: The role of the leadership is crucial in making a city smart, or at least smarter. How do mayors and other civic leaders go about setting priorities that define how a city becomes smarter across different dimensions of its operations?

Hariharan: You’re right, mayors play such a critical role. I was watching a documentary several years ago from HBO called The Weight of the Nation . This documentary takes you through the neighborhoods of Cuyahoga County, Ohio – particularly Lyndhurst and Hough. They’re about 8.5 miles apart, and as you drive through these neighborhoods, the life expectancy drops by approximately 24 years. And it’s not unique to Ohio. When you take a tube ride in London from Oxford Circus to Star Lane, which takes about 15 minutes, the life expectancy drops by approximately 20 years (from 96.38 years at Oxford Circus to 75.3 years near Star Lane).

[Those are] two neighborhoods that are so close to each other, but so far apart. The question is why. An obvious answer is, yes, there is a health care disparity between these two communities, but the health care disparity doesn’t come by itself. It’s also because of the disparities in education, housing and food access.

So, mayors have a crucial role to play in terms of addressing some of these real-life challenges and balancing that with driving economic growth for cities. They need to do that in three steps.

[First], they need to define a clear and simple vision for their city. I’ll use an overused example here, but a powerful one. One of the former mayors of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu (September 2006-July 2011), said that his vision was to create a “Dancing Barcelona,” a city where visitors felt welcome, the streets were well-lit, the city smelled fresh, and the citizens and the visitors were safe and happy. This powerful, simple vision drove the choice of technologies for Barcelona, whether it be in mobility, parking, lighting, energy management or security. The second is collaboration with citizens and driving initiatives that are citizen-centric. Third, mayors need to understand the local and political context, which they are quite adept at.

“It is important for mayors to understand the local and political context, instead of getting excited and trying to figure out, “If these solutions work somewhere else, can I replicate them in my city?”

For example, San Francisco a few years ago implemented dynamic pricing for its parking system. Los Angeles is implementing a similar system with expansive and expensive in-street sensors, garage sensors and smart meters. [However], dynamically calculating pricing for parking isn’t suitable for smaller cities. Smaller cities can do that using transaction data that they collect, as well as some occasional manual surveys. So, it is important for mayors to understand the local and political context, instead of getting excited and trying to figure out, “If these solutions work somewhere else, can I replicate them in my city?” They also have to balance the resources available to them between solving citizens’ challenges and driving economic growth.

Knowledge at Wharton: One of the biggest challenges that many mayors seem to be facing these days is how to handle the influx of new people. They could either be immigrants from other countries, or just an influx of people from the hinterlands or rural areas into the cities. How could mayors and other civic leaders deal with these challenges in a smart, inclusive and compassionate manner?

Hariharan: In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, every hour of every single day, nearly a thousand people [relocate] from rural areas to urban areas. If this were to continue, we would have to build a city as large as London – one every month for the next 33 years. It puts a lot of pressure on the cities’ limited and scarce resources.

Another critical issue many of us are overlooking is the growing disparity across the various regions of a nation. In the U.S., the bigger communities today are growing faster [than others], and they’re also contributing to the nation’s economic growth more than ever before. These bigger communities are powered by well-educated millennials and the agglomeration of trends caused by digital technologies. [Alongside], some of the smaller metros are waning, and rural areas are sliding into deep decline.

In the U.S. in the last couple of years, more than half of the jobs created because of digital technologies have gone to the top 20 metros, which are home to only one-third of the country’s population. They include the usual suspects of New York, Boston, the [San Francisco] Bay Area, Seattle and Washington, D.C., followed by the Sun Belt hubs of Atlanta, Dallas, Miami and Orlando.

In this context, mayors have two key imperatives. One, make regionally balanced growth a priority. It’s not a very difficult task. It is just that leaders have to consciously say, “I’m going to drive economic cohesion.” And it’s not a novel idea, either, because if you look across the pond, the European Union [has allocated] one-third of its budget between 2014 and 2020 to its Cohesion Policy Program , which will allow some lagging regions to catch up.

The second [imperative for mayors] is make re-skilling a priority. There has been a lot of talk about machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics and automation getting to factory floors. The jobs of tomorrow will not be the same as the jobs of today or yesterday. Even white-collar jobs will get disrupted.

Data shows that whenever public sector investment is directed towards human capital, it has always led to prosperity. In three decades following 1910, the U.S. spent a lot of its public sector funds in educating its citizens. The high school enrolment rate in that period went from about 18% to 73%, and the graduation rate went from 9% to 51%, (according to a Harvard University study ).

What did that mean? It meant that U.S. citizens were highly educated, and their income was substantially higher in comparison to their counterparts in some of the other industrialized countries at that period of time. If we could do it then, we should be able to do it now – particularly given the access we have to many digital tools.

Knowledge at Wharton: One of the effects of digitalization is that it generates vast amounts of data. Could you speak about how data analytics and collaborative data sharing could enable smarter decision-making about cities?

Hariharan: Data is by far the most valuable asset nowadays that private enterprises and the public sector have. Whether you are driving through a traffic light or paying a utility bill or browsing a city’s website or calling a city department – or even dumping garbage into your neighborhood dumpster – the city collects so much data about you. If the data is mined properly, then the city can use that to serve the needs of the citizens. Better yet, they can even anticipate the needs of the citizens.

So, if the city were to mine this data and develop a platform, there are five Cs that the special report talks about (on Page 12). The first C is collaboration across the various departments of a city. The second C stands for the citizens: How do you use the platform to effectively serve the needs of the citizens? Using that unified platform, how can a citizen either pay a bill or get a license for starting a business? This would require collaboration, as you can imagine, across several departments of the city itself.

The third C is about colleges and university systems. How do you collaborate with them effectively for you to tap into the local talent? The fourth C is communities and neighborhoods. How do I use the platform to effectively serve the needs of a community, neighborhood, and provide them information related to their neighborhood? It may be related to safety or health about that community.

“Before cities start to collect your data and use it, they have to get explicit permission from the citizens – an explicit opt-in is absolutely needed.”

The fifth C is about civic tech space. How do you open up your platform, publish APIs that the private sector can use in order to develop new applications and tools in support of your smart-city agenda?

Before cities start to collect your data and use it, they must get explicit permission from the citizens – an explicit opt-in is absolutely needed. The city needs to also explain to the citizens how it plans to use that data in simple terms, instead of throwing a 25-page document at us. In the end, cities need to be responsible guardians of citizens’ data.

Knowledge at Wharton: My next question is about the sixth C, and that is cost. As cities try to become smarter, how do these initiatives get funded, and how do you get their costs covered? Could you talk about the different financing models that cities have used to fund some of these smart-city initiatives, and what are some of the pros and cons?

Hariharan: The costs and funding are by far the biggest challenges for smart-city initiatives. Federal grants are an option. Philanthropic grants [are another option]. The Knight Foundation, as an example, funded the smart-city roadmap study that the City of Philadelphia published in February, as we all know. But these grants are not sufficient for citywide smart-city programs.

There are a couple of other options that have been toyed around with. One is the possibility of increased taxes, thereby increasing the revenues of the city to fund some of these programs. But most of us may not be in favor of getting our taxes increased. The second option is, [since] the city has access to so much of our data, can they sell it? Can they monetize the data? I’m not actually in favor of that option until we understand that there are adequate privacy and security measures that are in place by the city.

That gets us back to an option that is an age-old technique, but it has been improvised recently. It is public/private partnerships. The way it has evolved lately, a repayment model has been built into the partnership.

One example that comes to mind is Kansas City, with its citywide IoT (Internet of Things) effort. The municipality in this particular case funded approximately $3.7 million and the private partners funded about $12.3 million for a total of about $16 million. The city used that money to install 25 kiosks around the city, which provided free internet access to citizens, through which they could also access city-related information. The city also uses these kiosks as an emergency alert system. The revenue model is built on advertising on these kiosks. The initial calculation has shown that both the city, as well as the private partners that funded this initiative, will be able to recoup most of their costs in less than five years – pretty impressive, right?

The second example is a pilot project in Portland, Oregon. The city has a federal grant for this pilot, where it is using IoT-related sensors that go on top of the traffic signals, as well as on many of the light poles in the city. The objective of this project is to figure out how they can [decongest] traffic and improve air quality. If it goes well, they want to try and get funding to implement it across the entire city. The initial funding came from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, while the sensors at the major intersections are provided by private partners.

“Sometimes it is never too late, or it is sometimes good to be late to a party, because that allows you to learn from the lessons that someone else has had.”

Knowledge at Wharton: Once the funding has been raised, what are some of the best practices and the ways the funds can be allocated across different priorities that the cities have?

Hariharan: Funding is by far the most challenging aspect for mayors to contend with in smart-city programs. There are three ways, at least, that they should consider before they go about spending the money. First, which is pretty much a no-brainer, is to pick programs that give the maximum bang for the buck.

For example, depending on the size of the city, you’ll find 10,000 to 300,000 lights. This is a valuable part of the infrastructure because it already has power supply built into them. The lights at an elevation of nearly 30 feet, so imagine [what you can achieve] if you put sensors on top of these light poles. They can be used to monitor for traffic. Based on that, determine when to turn on the lights and turn off the lights. They can also be used to monitor traffic and detect crimes. The city can achieve at least three things: Increase the safety and security of citizens, ease traffic congestion, and save energy costs.

Secondly, before spending the money, think through the regulatory changes that are needed. For example, Columbus, Ohio, plans to roll out electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles. The question that the city has to ask is: How do they work in the context of the existing infrastructure? What regulatory changes have to be made?

Thirdly, the cities should consider the procurement process. How do I streamline procurement? If funding is the most difficult thing to do, the second most difficult is a city’s procurement process. They take a long time and are also laborious.

A couple of approaches have been proposed in order to ease the procurement process. One, consider cooperative procurement. If another city is already working with that vendor, see if you can piggyback on that contract.

The second approach is to consider driving the initiative at a state level. For example, in January 2017, the department of transportation in the state of Illinois launched an RFP (request for proposals) for smart street lighting across the state. Once that RFP is awarded, [each of] the cities can use its existing contract instead of having to negotiate the terms and conditions on an individual basis.

Knowledge at Wharton: Which cities in the U.S. have done a good job of implementing smart-city initiatives, especially in tackling challenges like climate change? What can other cities learn from their examples?

Hariharan: Quite a few cities in the U.S. have driven initiatives that are smart and sustainable. Some of them are tackling climate change, as well. I want to talk about two cities – Atlanta and Orlando.

Dan Gordon, the [former] chief operating officer of Atlanta had this clear vision on what he wanted to do for the city. Gordon and the former mayor, Kasim Reed, put together several smart-city initiatives in transportation, safety and communication with citizens and businesses. For example, Atlanta recently deployed “ShotSpotter,” an IoT acoustic technology in order to reduce gun-related violence. This technology will help the city dispatch police officers to a crime scene in real time, without anyone having to call 911.

Atlanta also plans to install solar panels in many large downtown buildings, and that would work towards their sustainability initiative. It will increase their renewable energy capacity, as well as reduce energy waste, such as greenhouse gas emissions.

In Orlando, Disney World [alone] has about 75 million visitors every year. The mayor says that it has the world’s highest hotel and car rental rates. [Chris Castro,] the director of Orlando’s smart-city program, says his city gets people with all sorts of driving habits. He says, “You don’t need expensive technology. Even some simple fixes could go a long way when it comes to making the city smart.”

Orlando’s mayor (Buddy Dyer) shared an example of a mobile parking alert system the city has developed. Initially, there was a lot of resistance, I believe, because city officials were worried that the revenue from parking fines would go down. It did. However, the city saw an increase in revenues, because it allowed people to pay for parking through their mobile devices. Of course, both citizens and visitors were happy, because they could avoid fines.

“It is the responsibility of the leaders in the private and public sectors, and academic institutions … to figure out how to make digital inclusion a part of the agenda in smart-city programs.”

Orlando is the only city in Florida that has passed an ordinance saying that all of its public buildings will publish data on both their energy and water consumption. The city has also committed to ensuring that all its buildings will use 100% renewable energy by 2050. Those are examples of cities that are not just focused on infrastructure, but also focused on citizens and sustainability.

[As for] tackling climate change, San Francisco recently received an award for its Zero Waste program that it launched in 2002. It has achieved an incredible reduction in landfill diversion rates of about 80%. San Francisco also uses 100 million fewer plastic bags every year. San Francisco is well on its way to achieve the zero-waste goal by the end 2019, actually.

Knowledge at Wharton: Do you have any examples of cities that are doing a good job working with the talent in the companies in their geographic boundaries, so as to enhance the impact of their smart-city initiatives? What can cities and companies learn from those examples?

Hariharan: Collaboration with private enterprises and academic institutions is a way by which cities can tap into local talent. One of the new concepts, thanks to the Brookings Institution, is of innovation districts . Think of them as geographic clusters that bring together academic and scientific research institutions – private sector, small and big entrepreneurial organizations, and then public incubators focused on doing research. These geographic clusters are placed in amenity-rich urban centers that drive economic development for a particular city.

There are several examples of such innovation districts. Mayor Andy Berke in Chattanooga set up the Chattanooga Innovation District that has helped the city drive its growth to the next level. It’s one of the best places to live in the country, and among Top 100 Best Places to Live . Among companies that have been successful and were built in that innovation district is Access America Transport, which was eventually brought over by UPS. The same founders also created another startup called the Lamp Post group (a venture incubator for startups). So, these innovation districts are a way for companies to create clusters to drive economic growth, but also to drive partnerships between various entities in the city.

Knowledge at Wharton: Could we take a look now across the pond at Europe and see how the American approach to making smart cities differs from the approach in Europe? Are there lessons that each continent can learn from the other, in terms of how to make the world more sustainable and more inclusive?

Hariharan: Europe has been working on smart-city initiatives a little bit longer than the U.S. has been. In the U.S., the smart-city programs typically have been tied to infrastructure and economic development. In Europe, having been at it for a little longer, they are now focused on creating citizen-centric initiatives. How do I make my cities more livable? How do I make my cities where the citizens are happy? Sustainability is one of the key initiatives that Europe has been focused on.

Europe is also unique in the sense that it has smaller countries. Then you have the European Union, so there is a concerted effort across communities, cities, and by the European Union itself to drive some of these smart-city programs. That is going to help them achieve their goal of 300 smart cities by the end of 2020, which is an ambitious goal.

But sometimes it is never too late, or it is sometimes good to be late to a party, because that allows you to learn from the lessons that someone else has had. The U.S. can take a lot of lessons from how Europe has approached smart-city programs. But with several of the initiatives across U.S. and the investments that the cities are making, the U.S. is well on its way to drive growth across major metros, as well as the smaller metros.

As we look at some of these programs that are happening, it is the responsibility of the leaders in the private and public sectors, and academic institutions, to collaborate effectively with city leaders, as well as with communities, to figure out how to make digital inclusion a part of the agenda in smart-city programs.

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Smart cities: Digital solutions for a more livable future

Until recently, city leaders thought of smart technologies primarily as tools for becoming more efficient behind the scenes. Now technology is being injected more directly into the lives of residents. Smartphones have become the keys to the city, putting instant information about transit, traffic, health services, safety alerts, and community news into millions of hands.

After a decade of trial and error, municipal leaders are realizing that smart-city strategies start with people, not technology. “ Smartness ” is not just about installing digital interfaces in traditional infrastructure or streamlining city operations. It is also about using technology and data purposefully to make better decisions and deliver a better quality of life .

Quality of life has many dimensions, from the air residents breathe to how safe they feel walking the streets. The latest report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), Smart cities: Digital solutions for a more livable future (PDF–6MB), analyzes how dozens of digital applications address these kinds of practical and very human concerns. It finds that cities can use smart technologies to improve some key quality-of-life indicators by 10 to 30 percent—numbers that translate into lives saved, fewer crime incidents, shorter commutes, a reduced health burden, and carbon emissions averted.

What makes a city smart?

Smart-city technologies have substantial unrealized potential to improve the urban quality of life, a look at current deployment in 50 cities around the world shows that even the most advanced still have a long way to go, smart cities change the economics of infrastructure and create room for partnerships and private-sector participation.

Smart cities put data and digital technology to work to make better decisions and improve the quality of life. More comprehensive, real-time data gives agencies the ability to watch events as they unfold, understand how demand patterns are changing, and respond with faster and lower-cost solutions.

Three layers work together to make a smart city hum (Exhibit 1). First is the technology base, which includes a critical mass of smartphones and sensors connected by high-speed communication networks. The second layer consists of specific applications. Translating raw data into alerts, insight, and action requires the right tools, and this is where technology providers and app developers come in. The third layer is usage by cities, companies, and the public. Many applications succeed only if they are widely adopted and manage to change behavior. They encourage people to use transit during off-hours, to change routes, to use less energy and water and to do so at different times of day, and to reduce strains on the healthcare system through preventive self-care.

MGI assessed how smart-city applications could affect various quality-of-life dimensions: safety, time and convenience, health, environmental quality, social connectedness and civic participation, jobs, and the cost of living (see interactive). The wide range of outcomes reflects the fact that applications perform differently from city to city, depending on factors such as legacy infrastructure systems and on baseline starting points.

Applications can help cities fight crime and improve other aspects of public safety

Deploying a range of applications to their maximum effect could potentially reduce fatalities (from homicide, road traffic, and fires) by 8 to 10 percent. In a high-crime city with a population of five million, this could mean saving up to 300 lives each year. Incidents of assault, robbery, burglary, and auto theft could be lowered by 30 to 40 percent. On top of these metrics are the incalculable benefits of giving residents freedom of movement and peace of mind.

Technology is not a quick fix for crime, but agencies can use data to deploy scarce resources and personnel more effectively. Real-time crime mapping, for instance, utilizes statistical analysis to highlight patterns, while predictive policing goes a step further, anticipating crime to head off incidents before they occur. When incidents do occur, applications such as gunshot detection, smart surveillance, and home security systems can accelerate law-enforcement response. But data-driven policing has to be deployed in a way that protects civil liberties and avoids criminalizing specific neighborhoods or demographic groups.

Seconds count when lives are at stake, making speed critical for first responders in getting to the scene of emergencies. Smart systems can optimize call centers and field operations, while traffic-signal preemption gives emergency vehicles a clear driving path. These types of applications could cut emergency response times by 20 to 35 percent. A city with an already low response time of eight minutes could shave off almost two minutes. A city starting with an average response time of 50 minutes might be able to trim that by more than 17 minutes.

Smart-city technologies can make daily commutes faster and less frustrating

Tens of millions of people in cities worldwide begin and end every workday fuming in traffic or piling into overcrowded buses and trains. Improving the daily commute is critical to quality of life.

By 2025, cities that deploy smart-mobility applications have the potential to cut commuting times by 15 to 20 percent on average, with some people enjoying even larger reductions. The potential associated with each application is highly variable, depending on each city’s density, existing transit infrastructure, and commuting patterns. In a dense city with extensive transit, smart technologies could save the average commuter almost 15 minutes a day. In a developing city with more grueling commutes, the improvement might be 20 to 30 minutes every day.

In general, cities with extensive, well-used transit systems benefit from applications that streamline the experience for riders. Using digital signage or mobile apps to deliver real-time information about delays enables riders to adjust their routes on the fly. Installing IoT sensors on existing physical infrastructure can help crews fix problems before they turn into breakdowns and delays.

Applications that ease road congestion are more effective in cities where driving is prevalent or where buses are the primary mode of transit. Intelligent syncing of traffic signals has the potential to reduce average commutes by more than 5 percent in developing cities where most people travel by bus. Real-time navigation alerts drivers to delays and helps them choose the fastest route. Smart-parking apps point them directly to available spots, eliminating time spent fruitlessly circling city blocks.

Cities can be catalysts for better health

The sheer density of cities makes them critical although currently underutilized platforms for addressing health. Recognizing that the role of technology in healthcare is broad and evolving by the day, we analyze only digital applications that offer cities room to play a role. We quantify their potential impact on disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), the primary metric used by the World Health Organization to convey the global disease burden, reflecting not only years of life lost to early death but also productive and healthy life lost to disability or incapacity. If cities deploy the applications included in our analyses to their fullest effect, we see the potential to reduce DALYs by 8 to 15 percent.

Applications that help prevent, treat, and monitor chronic conditions , such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease, could make the biggest difference in the developed world. Remote-patient-monitoring systems have the potential to reduce the health burden in high-income cities by more than 4 percent. These systems use digital devices to take vital readings, then transmit them securely to doctors in another location for assessment. This data can alert both patient and doctor when early intervention is needed, heading off complications and hospitalizations.

Cities can use data and analytics to identify demographic groups with elevated risk profiles and target interventions more precisely. So-called mHealth interventions can send out lifesaving messages about vaccinations, sanitation, safe sex, and adherence to antiretroviral therapy regimens. In low-income cities with high infant-mortality rates, data-based interventions focused on maternal and child health alone could reduce DALYs by more than 5 percent. Another 5 percent reduction is possible if developing cities use infectious-disease surveillance systems to stay a step ahead of fast-moving epidemics. Telemedicine, which provides clinical consultations by videoconference, can also be lifesaving in low-income cities with doctor shortages.

Smart cities can deliver a cleaner and more sustainable environment

As urbanization, industrialization, and consumption grow, environmental pressures multiply. Applications such as building-automation systems, dynamic electricity pricing, and some mobility applications could combine to cut emissions by 10 to 15 percent.

Water -consumption tracking, which pairs advanced metering with digital feedback messages, can nudge people toward conservation and reduce consumption by 15 percent in cities where residential water usage is high. In many parts of the developing world, the biggest source of water waste is leakage from pipes. Deploying sensors and analytics can cut those losses by up to 25 percent. Applications such as pay-as-you-throw digital tracking can reduce the volume of solid waste per capita by 10 to 20 percent. Overall, cities can save 25 to 80 liters of water per person each day and reduce unrecycled solid waste by 30 to 130 kilograms per person annually.

Air-quality sensors do not automatically address the causes of pollution, but they can identify the sources and provide the basis for further action. Beijing reduced deadly airborne pollutants by roughly 20 percent in less than a year by closely tracking the sources of pollution and regulating traffic and construction accordingly. Sharing real-time air-quality information with the public via smartphone apps enables individuals to take protective measures. This can reduce negative health effects by 3 to 15 percent, depending on current pollution levels.

Smart cities can create a new type of digital urban commons and enhance social connectedness

Community is hard to quantify, but MGI surveyed urban residents to determine if digital channels for communicating with local officials as well as digital platforms that facilitate real-world interactions (such as Meetup and Nextdoor) can have an impact. Our analysis suggests that using these types of applications could nearly double the share of residents who feel connected to the local community, and nearly triple the share who feel connected to local government.

Establishing channels for two-way communication between the public and local agencies could make city governments more responsive. Many city agencies maintain an active presence on social networks, and others have developed their own interactive citizen apps. In addition to disseminating information, these channels create vehicles for residents to report concerns, collect data, or weigh in on planning issues. Paris has implemented a participatory budget, inviting anyone to post project ideas and then holding online votes to decide which ones merit funding.

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Becoming a smart city is not a strategy for job creation, but smart solutions can make local labor markets more efficient and slightly lower the cost of living.

Many local officials want to know if becoming a smart city will lead to an infusion of high-paying tech jobs or accelerate a wave of automation. Our analysis finds a slightly positive net impact on formal employment. Smart technologies will directly eliminate some jobs (such as administrative and field jobs in city government) while creating others (such as maintenance, driving roles, and temporary installation jobs). E-career centers can have a modest positive impact by creating more efficient mechanisms for hiring and drawing more unemployed and inactive people into the workforce. Data-driven formal education and online retraining programs can enhance a city’s pool of skills. Digitizing government functions such as business licensing, permitting, and tax filing can free local enterprises from red tape, contributing to a more entrepreneurial business climate.

Many of the world’s most dynamic and desirable cities have serious housing shortages , driving up rents and home prices. Expanding the supply of housing can bring down those costs. In many places, bureaucracy bogs down land acquisition, environmental studies, design approvals, and permitting. Digitizing these processes can remove risks and delays, encouraging more construction. In addition, most cities have a surprising amount of land sitting idle that could be suitable for infill housing. Creating open-source cadastral databases can help to identify land parcels for development.

Smart applications produce savings in other areas, such as encouraging more efficient usage of utilities and the healthcare system. Products such as home-security systems, personal-alert devices, and lifestyle wearables involve consumer purchases, but they offer value that many are willing to pay for. Mobility applications offer new value as well, although e-hailing may encourage people to take more rides than they once did. However, e-hailing and other sharing applications make it possible for some people to forgo private vehicle ownership. MGI estimates that the average person could save as much as 3 percent on current annual expenditures.

MGI took a snapshot of deployment in 50 cities around the world, not to crown the world’s smartest city but to show the full sweep of activity under way around the globe. This includes assessment of each city’s technology base, its current application rollout, and public adoption.

Download and print a smart-city snapshot showing deployment progress.

Our view of each city’s technology base looked at the extent of sensors and devices , the quality of communication networks, and the presence of open data portals. Among the most advanced are Amsterdam, New York, Seoul, Singapore, and Stockholm—but even these front-runners are only about two-thirds of the way toward what constitutes a fully comprehensive technology base today. In general, cities across China, East Asia, Europe, and North America have relatively strong tech bases, as do select cities in the Middle East. But those in Africa, India, and Latin America lag behind, particularly in installing the sensor layer, the most capital-intensive element.

We gauged each city’s progress in implementation using a checklist of current smart applications. Mobility has been a top priority for most cities, but those places with the highest number of applications implemented overall—London, Los Angeles, New York, Seoul, Shenzhen, and Singapore—have branched out into multiple domains. Some cities have not yet implemented the applications with the greatest potential to address some of their priority issues.

MGI conducted online surveys in all of the cities analyzed to gauge how residents feel about the technologies already at work in their environment. We found that Asian cities are the strongest performers in awareness, usage, and satisfaction, while European cities lag. Positive adoption and awareness appear correlated with having a young population that not only accepts a more digital way of doing things but also expects it.

Smart-city technologies help cities get more out of their assets, whether they have extensive legacy systems or are building from scratch. There is no getting around the need to invest in physical assets and maintenance, but smart technologies can add new capabilities as core components are upgraded.

Infrastructure investment once locked cities into capital-intensive and extremely long-term plans. Now, using the right combination of traditional construction and smart solutions, they can respond more dynamically to how demand is changing. If population growth surges in a far-flung neighborhood, adding a new subway or bus line with the accompanying fleet expansion may take years. By contrast, a privately operated on-demand minibus service could be up and running much faster.

City government does not have to be the sole funder and operator of every type of service and infrastructure system. While implementing most of the applications that we examined would fall to the public sector, the majority of the initial investment could come from private actors (Exhibit 2). Public financing may be reserved for only those public goods that must be provided by the government. Furthermore, more than half of the initial investment that needs to be made by the public sector would generate a positive financial return, which opens the door to partnerships .

Adding more actors to the mix is a positive, since it increases adoption and applies more creativity to the available data. When private-sector innovations spring up organically, the role of government may involve regulating, convening key actors, offering subsidies, or changing purchasing decisions. Rather than taking a master-planning approach, some cities position themselves as ecosystems, creating consortia and even physical collaboration spaces.

Some cities are starting their transformations with inherent advantages such as wealth, density, and existing high-tech industries. But even places that lack these ingredients can set themselves apart with vision, good management, a willingness to break with conventional ways of doing things, and a relentless commitment to meeting the needs of residents. There are many blank canvases for the private sector, not for profits, and technologists to fill—and above all, individuals should be empowered to shape the future of the cities they call home.

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Lola Woetzel is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Shanghai office and a director of the McKinsey Global Institute; Jaana Remes is a partner in the San Francisco office; Brodie Boland is an associate partner the Washington, DC, office, where John Means is a partner; Katrina Lv is a partner in the Shenzhen office; Suveer Sinha is a partner in the Mumbai office; Gernot Strube is a senior partner in the Munich office; Jonathan Law is a partner in the New York office; Andrés Cadena is a partner in the Bogotá office; and Valerie von der Tann is a consultant in the Berlin office.

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Smart Cities are Complicated and Costly: Here's How to Build Them

Much promotion of smart cities assumes that municipalities will take a proactive, top-down, technology-first approach to urban progress. Thus far, these initiatives look for some forward-thinking city official (or immensely deep-pocketed private investor) to write a big purchase order for a lot of hardware and software, in the same way an industrial company like Procter & Gamble buys a multimillion dollar SAP install.

But most cities don’t work like corporations. They tend to be both siloed (so departments don’t work on solutions together, let alone work in conjunction with pilot project sponsors) and strapped for cash (so there is no budget for experimentation). This constraint means that city leaders often can’t take the lead in fully vetting, designing, and overseeing new technologies and business models. The result: Innovative and aggressive vendors have room to step into the breach and implement concepts and ideas on their own, with results that often favor elites (or descend into ineffectiveness) over good public policy.

I believe public-private partnerships can lead to smarter cities. But a truly smart smart city investment requires looking at three dimensions: characteristics of cities, capital requirements for various initiatives, and the decision-making process. I suggest decision makers in these initiatives follow an analytical sequence of situation, solution, and sovereignty.

First, cities are not alike and it’s naïve to approach either decision making or smart city technology (or investing) without this consideration. As McKinsey & Co. authors pointed out in a recent article on The Future(s) of Mobility, mayors, investors, and companies need to examine at least four combinations of wealth, growth, and density:

Dense cities in developed economies. Tokyo is an example of a very densely built out city in a mature economy.
Dense cities in emerging economies. Mexico City has a significant urban core but is still managing the characteristics of a demographically young nation.
Low-density cities in developed economies. Houston is a sprawling low-density city in a developed economy.
Low-density cities in emerging economies. Lagos, Bangalore, and Jakarta are low-density cities covering expansive horizontal areas with informal settlements in nations still working on substantial transit, governance, finance, and social service institutions.

“The kind of ‘smartness’ that changes the life of a resident of Japan is a lot different from what constitutes a life changing tool in Nigeria

In my research these configurations have very different installed hard infrastructure (roads, water, buildings) and very different installed soft infrastructure (bureaucracy, land rights, tax rolls). The kind of “smartness” that changes the life of a resident of Japan is a lot different from what constitutes a life-changing tool in Nigeria. What is the situation in which decision makers finds themselves?

Second, technology projects are quite different not only in the ambition of their programming, but also in terms of capital required, who pays for what, and who benefits. “Wi-Fi everywhere” is a lot cheaper to install than a state-of-the-art storm water management and flood resilience program. These are solutions —the how and the why. Considerations of “how expensive” and “why this is good for citizens” vary immensely and can’t just be lumped into some pool of tech dreams of the smart city industry.

Sovereignty

Third, and most overlooked, is the question of sovereignty. In any given location, who decides what gets done? Which decisions will be made by innovators from the private sector, by visionaries in civic entrepreneurship, on apps, by public acclaim, or “other”?

Some technologies seem to percolate up on their own—most notably shared-economy ideas like Airbnb and Uber. No government planned these, but it’s hard to argue that Uber is not part of transportation infrastructure in many cities. Other technologies need central investment and control—for example, congestion pricing and traffic signal coordination seen in London or Singapore. That kind of integrated solution is hard for an upstart firm to accomplish on its own.

How to pay for it?

To succeed in any of these situations, looking at most types of solutions, and before even considering sovereignty, it’s useful to revisit what financial parties look for in a traditional concrete and steel infrastructure investment. It’s the same for smart city infrastructure.

The classic concerns of centuries still apply today: payment, predictability, and permissions . What’s the source of repayment of our loan or investment in that tool? How predictable , dependable, or at risk, is that cash flow from the application or gadget? Whose permission does the sponsor need (think environmental permits, land rights) before starting? And the inverse: whose permissions, if withdrawn, can cut off the cash flow stream (think tariffs, taxes, prohibitions)?

The future is starting

Proposed “ground up” projects fill the news: Sidewalk Labs, the smart-city subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has announced plans to create a high-tech neighborhood in Toronto, Quayside , that promises to combine “ the best in urban design with the latest in digital technology ,” including buildings that react to weather. Bill Gates has invested $80 million toward the development of Belmont , a smart city in Arizona; plans call for autonomous vehicles and a sophisticated data hub. But many of these projects seem more like showrooms than replicable models; more like vanity projects than universal urban progress— digital stardust and stupid cities , suggests Bruce Sterling writing in The Atlantic . At the same time, vendors of all manner of devices and services—drone deliveries to autonomous vehicles, demand management of electricity, ubiquitous public Wi-Fi stations—are going ahead with their own programs.

To effectively work together to improve society and, crucially, attract outside money to do so, both categories of effort need to follow a thoughtful situation-solution-sovereignty roadmap. Coupled with investments based on understanding of payment, predictability, and permissions, this will illuminate the path to attracting capital—a lot of capital—to smart city infrastructure investments all over the world.

What do you think?

Are smart cities a practical alternative to moder urban living? Can we afford them? Can we afford not to build them? Add your insights below.

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The trend toward greater urbanization puts pressure on governments to ensure that cities remain livable, sustainable, and vibrant.
By integrating AI, sensors, and other cutting-edge technologies into core services, smart cities are redefining how residents, businesses, and governments will live, interact, and operate in the coming years.
Many national governments have made great strides in using digital technology to provide government benefits and distribute information. BCG’s analysis of 11 G20 member nations’ smart-city strategies reveals how leaders can take the next step and create a vision, engage stakeholders, and adopt policies to build smart cities.

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Cities of the Future

/ article, building national momentum for the smart-city agenda.

By Thilo Zelt , Rami Mourtada , Laurence Genillard , Lara Schober , and Marcel Sieg

Key Takeaways

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.

Fortunately, a new breed of so-called smart cities—such as London, Riyadh, and Seoul—are meeting the challenge by weaving digital technologies into the fabric of urban existence. By integrating artificial intelligence (AI), sensors, and other cutting-edge technologies into their core services, these and other smart cities are redefining how residents, businesses, and governments will live, interact, and operate in the coming years.

Megacities are leading the way, and their efforts foreshadow the gains that can be made by cities around the world. By studying the initiatives of smart cities and regions, other urban centers can learn to manage—if not alleviate—issues such as overcrowding, gridlock, safety, and water shortages. For instance, 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.

The reality, though, is that many cities and regions lack the resources needed to adopt such programs. This is where national governments can make a difference.

How National Governments Can Lead

Over the past decade, many national governments have made great strides with their digital agendas, achieving widespread adoption of digital technology to provide government benefits, conduct transactions, and distribute information. The logical next step is for governments to promote and fund smart-city strategies.

A country that other nations can learn from is South Korea, which created a five-year roadmap in 2019. In the years since, South Korea has been actively financing its national smart-city policy, supporting startups, and creating innovation ecosystems. As a result, the city of Sejong is piloting a system for optimizing transportation flows through an AI-based analysis of traffic flow data. Another city, Busan, is testing a smart-water management system to improve the city’s water use.

National governments can and should also focus on talent and skills, as well as R&D. Here, both Brazil and Germany stand out, as they value enablers such as research institutions and even include them as a key audience to whom strategic recommendations are addressed.

But countries such as South Korea, Germany, and Brazil are still not the norm. A recent BCG analysis found that only 11 of the Group of 20 (G20) member states have published a national smart-city strategy. (See Exhibit 1.) What’s more, most of these advanced nations have yet to publish frameworks, implementation structures, or guidelines for funding.

While many national governments have yet to fully embrace smart cities, they have the tools and know-how to help cities of all sizes become smart. They can play a major role when it comes to creating an enabling regulatory environment, effective governance structures, and balanced financing mechanisms.

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.

Germany’s stated goal is for smart cities to “promote eco-friendly mobility, energy, heat, water, sewage, and waste concepts and contribute to making municipalities carbon-neutral, green, and healthy.” And Turkey’s smart-city strategy supports its national goal of collaborating with the private sector to build a more skilled workforce, particularly in economically distressed parts of the country. BCG’s analysis of the 11 G20 member nations with a smart-city strategy revealed that all 11 have mobility and energy policies; 9 have education and government policies; 7 have health care, safety, commerce, and resource management policies; and 4 have smart-building policies.

In addition to supporting a country’s policy agenda, a national smart-city strategy can also help a national government measure and benchmark its country’s progress. (See “Turkey’s Smart-City Monitoring System.”)

Turkey’s Smart-City Monitoring System

Turkey set up a nationwide monitoring system in conjunction with the introduction of its 2020–2023 National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan. The system methodically collects data about the plan’s implementation for evaluation. Then, every six months, meetings are held with the responsible organizations to review the outcomes and discuss the interventions needed to address the gaps.

National governments should prioritize smart-city policies that promote mutually beneficial partnerships between the public and private sectors. Nine of the 11 national smart-city strategies count businesses as relevant stakeholders—and 7 of those also mention startups. However, few federal governments detail how the private sector should be involved in the execution of the national strategy. Two that do are South Korea and Australia. (See “Public-Private Partnerships in South Korea and Australia.”)

Public-Private Partnerships in South Korea and Australia

South Korea and Australia have taken steps to involve business in their smart-city plans. South Korea has established a comprehensive cross-sector industrial policy agenda and provides guidance on how the private sector can contribute to smart-city development. Australia’s Smart Cities Plan foresees the creation of an infrastructure financing unit with the task of leveraging private sector funding for smart-city measures. The government sees the private sector as key to achieving the plan’s goals of making smart investments in cities’ infrastructure, driving smart-city policies, and using smart technology to improve sustainability and innovation.

For its part, the private sector should be aware of the business opportunities that exist in helping governments build smart cities. According to Emergen Research, the global market for smart-city software, hardware, and services is predicted to grow from a little more than $400 billion in 2021 to $1.4 trillion in 2030. Governments can encourage greater participation by industry by creating technical standards, such as transmission protocols that enable interoperability among internet of things devices and solutions that enhance residents’ experiences. Having universal standards helps manufacturers lower their production costs and adopt new standards more quickly. Japan serves as a leader in this area, having introduced rules for ensuring the compatibility of data linkage infrastructure and compliance with safety management standards.

We analyzed the 11 strategies in 12 categories to compare how they are structured, which topics they emphasize, whether they offer financial support, and how they are monitored and implemented. (See Exhibit 2.) In short, national smart-city strategies fare better in high-level categories such as vision and stakeholder engagement, and they seem to focus less on more targeted ones, such as quantitative assessment, KPIs, and monitoring.

Six Strategic Steps

To be sure, building effective national smart-city strategies requires coordinated planning among all levels of government. The following six steps can help national, regional, and local governments achieve the full potential of digital technologies.

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.

In addition, national governments should create a regulatory framework that includes national smart-technology guidelines that are transparent and compatible with international standards. The framework should also address potential data issues, including sharing, ownership, amalgamation, compensation, and privacy.

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.

Leaders should also explore funding their agenda by forging public-private partnerships and instituting environmental externality pricing, such as congestion charges. India, for instance, is allocating $7.48 billion for state and local governments over five years, and each recipient could receive an average of $15.6 million a year; borrowing state governments must provide an equal amount in matching funds.

Nonfinancial support can involve centers of excellence to showcase government and industry know-how and encourage the exchange of knowledge and information. It is essential to create or empower national agencies that can provide the resources, frameworks, and best practices to advance 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. Governments should incentivize cities and regions to introduce minimum standards for monitoring the progress of smart-city agendas.

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. As cities worldwide continue to grow and change, the transformation into smart cities is not only desirable but also essential to ensure that urban landscapes are sustainable, adaptable, and livable. The strategies that national governments create can improve cities’ infrastructure, help them deliver services, and foster innovation. The evolution of smart cities will require concerted efforts, strategic planning, and collaboration with diverse stakeholders. But the upside is a future where cities of all sizes become magnets for creativity, harmony, and prosperity.

Managing Director & Partner

Partner & Director, Digital Transformation

Lead Knowledge Analyst

Senior Research Analyst

ACC – Madrid

Senior Knowledge Analyst

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7 Elements of a Successful Smart City Strategy

Smart Cities around the world are all facing similar pressures:

Rapid urbanization
The pressure that growing populations have on systems, infrastructure and housing
Mobility challenges and congestion
Climate change
Air pollution, water, and sanitation
Energy and sustainability
Rapidly changing technology
Competitiveness and ability to attract global talent

A smart city strategy can help solve and overcome these challenges, but only if it is carefully and strategically thought out. At the Smart Cities Innovation Accelerator at Melbourne, representatives from cities around the globe gathered to share ideas about smart city planning during a panel session on Smart City Strategy. Here are their suggestions.

Write It Down

Several panel members mentioned the importance of putting the smart city plan on paper so it can guide future endeavors. Some of the foundational pillars a city may consider include:

Strategic Documents: An overview of what the city is looking to achieve with its smart city efforts. This is an aspirational document that outlines the big outcomes a city is looking to achieve in the community-specific targets such as housing, sustainability, transport, governance, or whatever other outcomes are important for the city. All smart city efforts are guided by the strategic document.
Digital Strategy: A principles-based roadmap for how the city will approach digital and technology projects. This may include things like how the city will use technology to support businesses, create a customer-centric service design, carry out ethical innovation, and digitally engage the community.
Resiliency Strategy: A resiliency strategy is aimed at identifying the city’s vulnerabilities. It is where the main problems in the city are defined, which will inform the smart city projects the city will pursue.
Tech/Startup Plan: A successful smart city strategy will require input and solutions from the city’s tech and startup ecosystem. This plan identifies how the city will support that ecosystem and foster innovation.

Choose a Governance Model

While there was no definitive answer of what governance model is ‘right’ for a smart cities strategy, all panel members agreed that you have to research and choose a model that will help your city carry out smart city projects.

For example, the City of Melbourne has created a Smart City Office, a central unit that helps to support the delivery of the council’s plan using smart technology. The Smart Dublin model involves representatives from four local authorities and the Dublin City Council coming together to decide what is best for the city. Meanwhile, Sydney has taken a more distributed, decentralized approach, although admittedly this makes it a little harder to get buy-in for smart city projects across the organization.

There are many governance models that a city can choose. Thus, it is important that cities do their research on what models are out there, and which will work best for that particular city.

Focus on People and Problems

All panel members agreed that a smart city strategy should be focused on who is the customer and how smart city projects are going to benefit them.

This involves working with citizens and communities to identify the ‘menu of challenges’—those problems that are most important for the people in the city.

“It’s not about the tech; it’s about the people.”

Technology and solutions are then judged based on what the use case is, and how it may solve the challenges of the people.

A citizen-focused or people-based approach means every smart city project is evaluated, at all stages, based on how it will genuinely benefit the citizens.

See Where Technology Fits In

As mentioned above, a solid smart city strategy should always focus on the people and the problems first. Only then do you evaluate the technology to see where it fits.

It used to be that cities approached things as technology looking for a solution. Big companies forced their proprietary systems on top of cities without city officials truly considering what the city really needs, what the citizens want, and how that technology would benefit and impact communities.

“The role of technology, how you define a smart city and use data, I think it needs to come back to that global agenda, and that’s whether the utility of this data is going to reinforce inequalities ore is going to actually help combat them.”

A wise smart city strategy requires that cities fight back against this. They must first ask what problems they are trying to solve and only then consider how those solutions may come from existing and immerging technology.

In terms of technology, a smart city strategy also requires the city to define what ‘smart city’ means to them since there is no single definition. The city must also determine how it will gather data and how it will use that data to benefit citizens and to combat inequalities rather than reinforce them.

Take a Collaborative Approach

The challenges of the city cannot be solved by the city alone, a point that was made several times throughout the panel session.

Melbourne has created the Melbourne Innovation Districts, a partnership between the City of Melbourne, RMIT University and the University of Melbourne, aimed at developing urban innovations that will benefit citizens.

Meanwhile, Dublin has engaged the market through an Innovation Research Program. The city runs challenges where they put a particular city problem out to the market to see what solutions businesses can come up with. So far the city has worked with 42 startups and funded $1.5 million by giving these innovators a small amount of money to run a pilot and a bigger amount to do more if that pilot is successful.

Similarly, the UN Global Compact runs a city program to try to bring the private sector together with cities to find common solutions to challenges, and then find investments so that those solutions can be executed on the ground.

Collaboration is key to a successful smart city strategy, although panel members say that the city always has to be the heart of it. The city is an independent voice that doesn’t have a vested interest in the tech company, research center or industry partner. With the city in the center, the citizens will remain the focus of all smart city projects. As one panel member remarked, “Put the city in the center and collaborate to succeed.”

Create a Testbed

With collaborators on board, the next step in many smart city strategies is to create a testbed to test out new technology and assess its ability to solve city challenges.

Melbourne has a City Lab that explores opportunities then builds and tests solutions. For example, they have been working with a range of hardware and software companies, startups, and researchers to explore 5G and ROT and what it means for the city.

Similarly, Dublin created the Docklands, a $3 billion investment to create a district that can explore new technology and opportunities. It took several years to do so and required a lot of collaboration, but the results have been promising.

Learn and Share

Finally, many panelists mentioned that a smart city strategy should always include sharing what the city has learned and learning from other cities as well.

As mentioned, cities are facing a lot of common challenges, so what works in one city might be successfully applied in other cities too, without each city trying to ‘reinvent the wheel.’

“The key to this is, you’re never going to solve those problems alone—it’s about collaboration.”

Learning from mistakes and sharing successes is how cities can move forward together to a bold new world full of smart city innovation.

The Smart Cities Innovation Accelerator at Melbourne is one event that allowed city officials from around the world to come together to learn and to share. As one panelist put it, “These are the types of events that make a difference—the conversations, the partnership that you build out.”

These are insights from the Smart City Innovation Accelerator in Melbourne 2019.

The Big Picture: Business opportunities in smart cities

Smart cities generate numerous possibilities for collaboration between the public and private sectors. Learn the keys to such cooperation and see if the cities that interest you meet the requirements.

By studying the 9 dimensions that are the keys to progress in smart and sustainable cities, businesses may discover opportunities for collaborating in public-private partnerships (PPPs). Check out how these world cities rank. The crown represents the city that came top for that particular indicator.

Economy. Not just GDP but estimated growth, economic development plans and entrepreneurial hubs.

Social cohesion. Coexistence among different social groups, with interactions marked by peace, happiness and inclusion.

Human capital. Capable of attracting and retaining talent, creating plans to improve education, and promoting creativity and research.

Mobility & transportation. Facilitating movement over large areas, good infrastructure and access to public transportation.

Governance. Degree of public participation and representation, administrative efficiency and low corruption.

Environment. Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future: sustainable management of resources, green policies to counter the effects of climate change.

Technology. A strong ICT backbone to maintain or extend competitive advantage, with high internet penetration and mobile connectivity.

International outreach. An internationally recognized brand that attracts foreign investment and has representation abroad.

Urban planning. Creating compact spaces without overcrowding, accessible public services and green areas for public use.

7 forces of success

The following conditions are vital for building effective PPPs:

Value creation through satisfying the needs of end users (citizens).
Innovation through flexible contracts, which focus on outcomes and service provision.
Cost-benefit analyses consider not just economic value but social and environmental externalities and agglomeration effects.
Use of big data (via sensors, video, GPS) to identify patterns and trends that can be used to adapt the city to actual citizen behavior.
New payment systems and business models, beyond the usual forms of funding like user fees.
Participation of all stakeholders to tap their local knowledge and expertise.
Sound governance and transparency, essential for building trust.

A version of this article is published in IESE Business School Insight 153 .

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SmartCities

What is a 'smart city'?

The skyline with its financial district is photographed on early evening in Frankfurt, Germany, September 18, 2018. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach - RC1B8E1A6830

Shining a light on what it means for a city to be 'smart'. Image: REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

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Participants in a World Bank event share their thoughts on what makes a city 'smart'?
Technology, innovation and connection were key words associated with smart cities.
Panelists also offered their thoughts on what makes a smart city.

What is a smart city ? We’ve heard the term in contexts as diverse as urban planning and governance, transport, energy, the environment, health, and education. We’ve also noticed that the notion of smart cities relies on a range of technologies—including the internet of things (IoT), mobile solutions, big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain. Because of this connection with technology, we’ve had concerns about how smart cities will address issues such as data privacy and social exclusion. We see a risk that urban areas with poor web connectivity could be left out of the smart-cities trend. We’d like to continue an open dialogue on this trend.

Have you read?

Being smart about smart cities: a governance roadmap for digital technologies, how blockchain can empower smart cities - and why interoperability will be crucial, our alliance is creating smart city governance.

At the World Bank’s Global Smart City Partnership Program, we held a Virtual Knowledge Exchange Program on Smart Cities for Sustainable Development , jointly organized with the World Bank’s Open Learning Campus , to discuss the trend. At the event, we polled more than 260 participants from around the world to find out what they thought a smart city would be, what makes a urban area and its citizens smart, and what they wanted to see in their own smart city. As the word cloud shows, “technology,” “innovation,” and “connection” were the first words that came to participants’ minds when they thought of smart cities. “Citizen participation” and “data” make a community and its citizens smart , according to most of the participants. Around half chose “sustainability” as a priority in their vision for a smart city, and a quarter voted for “resilience.” We asked our panelists similar questions; here are five takeaways.

The Data for the City of Tomorrow report highlighted that in 2023, around 56% of the world is urbanized. Almost 65% of people use the internet. Soon, 75% of the world’s jobs will require digital skills.

The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Urban Transformation is at the forefront of advancing public-private collaboration in cities. It enables more resilient and future-ready communities and local economies through green initiatives and the ethical use of data.

Learn more about our impact:

Net Zero Carbon Cities: Through this initiative, we are sharing more than 200 leading practices to promote sustainability and reducing emissions in urban settings and empower cities to take bold action towards achieving carbon neutrality .
G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance: We are dedicated to establishing norms and policy standards for the safe and ethical use of data in smart cities , leading smart city governance initiatives in more than 36 cities around the world.
Empowering Brazilian SMEs with IoT adoption : We are removing barriers to IoT adoption for small and medium-sized enterprises in Brazil – with participating companies seeing a 192% return on investment.
IoT security: Our Council on the Connected World established IoT security requirements for consumer-facing devices . It engages over 100 organizations to safeguard consumers against cyber threats.
Healthy Cities and Communities: Through partnerships in Jersey City and Austin, USA, as well as Mumbai, India, this initiative focuses on enhancing citizens' lives by promoting better nutritional choices, physical activity, and sanitation practices.

Want to know more about our centre’s impact or get involved? Contact us .

Michael Donaldson, Chief Technology Officer of the City of Barcelona , said that he has seen a shift in the understanding of smart cities from associations with data and technology to a layered definition embracing “citizen intelligence” and “humanizing technology.” Barcelona’s digital participatory platform enables citizens to help direct city management by suggesting ideas. “Citizens have a lot of experience about the city, and we need to gather this intelligence in order to make better decisions,” he said.

Alice Charles, Head of Cities and Real Estate at the World Economic Forum , noted the changing role of the private sector in smart cities from “selling widgets and gadgets to the cities” to “promoting an outcome-driven model.” Companies are focusing on technologies that help urban leaders achieve their goals. This model requires stronger partnerships among cities, the private sector, civil society, and academia. Examples include the Smart Cities Challenge by Infrastructure Canada; City Possible , by Mastercard; and the Helsinki Energy Challenge.

Martin Weiss, Professor at the University of Pittsburgh , sees an opportunity in the wake of COVID-19 to find out what alternative smart worlds would look like. Digital technology has stood out, as it facilitates remote work, private and public online service delivery, and contactless interactions. He said, “We will focus on different questions than before, like how we make access to high-speed services less dependent on heavy infrastructure investments.”

Pedro Vidal, Intelligent Transport Systems Coordinator at the Chilean Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications , said that the pandemic hit mobility and public transportation services hard. “We have made alliances with universities to understand behavioral trends and are convinced that there are some changes in mobility preferences,” he said. “We created lanes for bicycles and developed measures for using public spaces in a safe way. We have seen an increase in the use of public transport. This can be transformed into a big opportunity to have a more sustainable city.”

Rudi Borrmann, Deputy Director at the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Local , emphasized the importance of openness and transparency in gathering and using data for public services, especially during the pandemic. He said that the first step toward creating a smart city is for local governments to improve the way they coordinate and communicate transparently with stakeholders. “Openness needs to be at the center of creating trust in bringing solutions to the citizens by using technology,” Borrmann says. OGP recently started the Open Response Recovery Campaign , in which the partnership developed a series of recommendations on how to better use open government as a way to strengthen trust during the pandemic.

All told, it looks as though a smart city is one that uses technology to efficiently engage citizens and meet their needs. In the post-pandemic era, we must prioritize measures to address inequality and digital divides, which leave many of the poor, and poor cities, behind. Data privacy and transparency must be protected. Cities become smarter when citizens and communities use technology to coproduce an environment where their digital rights are protected and their cities are made more sustainable.

Watch the recording of the full discussion here .

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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A smart city is an urban area where technology and data collection help improve quality of life as well as the sustainability and efficiency of city operations. Smart city technologies used by local governments include information and communication technologies (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Areas of city operations where ICT, IoT and other smart technologies increasingly play an important role include transportation, energy and infrastructure. As a city updates its systems and structures to incorporate these technologies, it becomes smarter. However, exactly which cities should be considered smart cities or should claim the mantle of the “smartest” city is a matter of debate.

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Just as the body’s nervous system governs how humans respond to the world around them, evolving technologies are empowering cities to respond to changes in their local urban environments.

Technologies to collect data—including real-time data—are central to smart city initiatives and the benefits they promise. Data-driven insights help local governments improve urban planning and the deployment of city services, ranging from waste management to public transportation, leading to better quality of life for residents.

More efficient city services can also help cut carbon emissions, contributing to global efforts to address climate change while also improving local air quality. In addition, smart city solutions can be an engine for economic growth, as better infrastructure and technological innovation can encourage job creation and business opportunities.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has identified three hallmarks of smart cities and communities: 1

Networks of sensors gather and integrate data that can be used for various applications and city services.

Connectivity enables municipal officials to interact directly with the community as well as monitor and manage city infrastructure.

The local government is committed to an open data philosophy and routinely shares operations and planning data with the public.

Tech and data-driven efforts to improve urban environments date back to at least the 1960s, when government officials in Los Angeles, California gathered data and used computer programs to identify impoverished neighborhoods in need of intervention. 2

The term “smart city” began appearing in academic literature in the 1990s and its definition has evolved and expanded over the years. A 2018 report from the McKinsey Global Institute noted that while city officials once leveraged smart city technologies “behind the scenes,” smart city solutions now increasingly include engagement from city residents. These stakeholders can collect and share important data through digital platforms and interactive mobile apps, playing a key role in the smart city ecosystem. 3

Today, smart city solutions are often touted as helping urban areas address challenges related to population growth. The United Nations predicts that by 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities.

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New technologies that improve efficiency and sustainability in the private sector are also powering smart city networks:

Information and communication technology includes an array of data-related technologies. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology defines ICT as encompassing the capture, storage, retrieval, processing, display, representation, presentation, organization, management, security, transfer and interchange of data and information.

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a network of physical devices, vehicles, appliances and other physical objects that are embedded with sensors, software and network connectivity that allows them to collect and share data. These connected devices—also known as “smart objects”—can range from simple “smart home” and “smart building” devices like smart thermostats, to wearables like smartwatches, to technology embedded in transportation systems. Wifi, or wireless connectivity, supports IoT functionality, with public wifi often considered key to IoT-powered city services.

Automation is the use of technology to perform tasks with minimal human input. In smart city projects, automation helps cities become more responsive to the real-time data that’s transmitted by connected devices in the Internet of Things. Through automation, for instance, streetlights can be turned on and off depending on feedback from sensors that detect light and motion. Such systems automatically switch off streetlights when they’re not needed, promoting energy efficiency and the sustainability of city operations.

Artificial intelligence combines computer science and robust data sets to enable problem-solving. Smart city projects use AI and machine learning -based solutions to manage infrastructure efficiently and sustainably. For example, AI algorithms can optimize waste collection routes, reducing carbon emissions by city garbage trucks. AI can also help law enforcement improve public safety by analyzing data from security cameras and connected devices to detect crime.

Smart transportation is a cornerstone of smart city planning. The Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other technologies like geolocation allow local governments and private sector partners to collect real-time data. This data helps to improve public transportation as well as ease traffic congestion, reducing carbon emissions and improving quality of life for city residents and commuters alike.

Smart city technologies used in smart transportation systems can help officials predict which city vehicles are at risk of a breakdown and proactively order repairs. These technologies power smart parking systems that assess parking availability and keep motorists informed. They facilitate an efficient, AI-powered approach to traffic management, using real-time traffic data to determine the timing of signal changes at intersections. Smart transportation systems also support the use of electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles, further contributing to reductions in carbon emissions and improving traffic flows.

Smart city technology like AI can help energy providers manage smart grids , which are electricity networks equipped with sensors and software. Advanced software and analytics tools can analyze data provided through connected devices to identify patterns in energy consumption and forecast future energy use, helping providers proactively avoid outages and meet customer needs. Smart energy can also support the integration of renewable energy sources and energy-efficient technologies, helping to mitigate climate change.

Smart energy technology can also reduce carbon dioxide emissions, waste and resources consumed in oil and gas operations . Examples include:

Applying predictive asset optimization with AI and IoT to extend the lifespan of assets and reduce the resources required to maintain and monitor them.
Optimizing upstream and midstream operations with a focus on systemic asset performance. This approach helps to better time migration to digital systems and investigate underperforming, overconsuming equipment.
Using technologies for environmental monitoring to reduce energy consumption, improve health, safety and environment (HSE) concerns.

Smart infrastructure encompasses both smart transportation and smart energy. It also includes smart approaches to utilities such as water as well as the maintenance of structures and equipment that support transportation, such as cables and decks. As with other smart technologies, data collected with sensors and connected devices helps decision makers spot and proactively address potential problems. In this case, the data helps to identify and tackle problems concerning infrastructure assets before they escalate while also improving efficiency and quality of life for local residents.

What urban area qualifies as a smart city and which cities are the “smartest” can vary depending on what source you consult. Cities in Europe, the Americas and Asia regularly jockey for position on various rankings. What is clear, however, is that local governments around the world are embracing a variety of smart city solutions. It includes famous centers of global commerce like New York City and Singapore, to regional powerhouses like Chattanooga, Tennessee and Zhejiang Province, China.

In Zhejiang, as with many other places in China, charging stations for electric vehicles are becoming ubiquitous. The province reportedly has more than one million charging stations. In Chattanooga, smart city projects include a collaboration with various organizations to monitor air quality through sensor networks. The project supports city air quality initiatives and provides valuable information to healthcare professionals.

But smart city innovations don’t take place in a vacuum. Urban planners, nonprofit organizations and corporations regularly come together to present ideas and solutions at global events. A key event for such exchanges is the Barcelona-based Smart City Expo World Congress, which has a stated goal to “collectivize urban innovation across the globe.”

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Use a fully automated real-time observability platform that puts performance data in context to deliver rapid identification to help prevent and remediate issues.

Balance citizen expectations with a full suite of asset management solutions for operations, maintenance, quality, safety and reliability with IBM Maximo® Application Suite.

IDC MarketScape's report indicates that industry expertise, configurability, flexibility and IBM's partner ecosystem played an important role in IBM's placement.

The City of Atlanta takes charge of its assets to drive greater efficiency and customer satisfaction with IBM Maximo® Application Suite.

The rise of ubiquitous data collection and automation has led local governments to embrace smart transportation.

Downer and IBM keep passengers moving safely, reliably and comfortably with updated, sustainable asset management.

Through the Internet of Things, businesses can monitor, manage and automate their operations more efficiently and with more control.

Infrastructure asset management (IAM) enables organizations to optimize assets and service offerings by encouraging strategic decision-making.

Unlock the full potential of your enterprise assets with IBM Maximo Application Suite by unifying maintenance, inspection and reliability systems into one platform. It’s an integrated cloud-based solution that harnesses the power of AI, IoT and advanced analytics to maximize asset performance, extend asset lifecycles, minimize operational costs and reduce downtime.

1 “ Putting People First: Smart Cities and Communities ” (link resides outside ibm.com). U.S. Department of Transportation, 9 June 2021.

2 “ Uncovering the Early History of ‘Big Data’ and the ‘Smart City’ in Los Angeles ” (link resides outside ibm.com). Valliantos, Mark. Boom California, 16 June 2005.

3 “ Smart cities: Digital solutions for a more livable future ” (link resides outside ibm.com). McKinsey Global Institute, 5 June 2018.

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secure, sustainable smart cities and the iot.

Smart cities aren't just a concept or a dream of the future.

Many are already active and expanding rapidly thanks to the wildly innovative Internet of Things (IoT) solutions .

Municipal governments are leveraging cellular and Low Power Wide Area (LPWAN) wireless technologies to connect and improve infrastructure, efficiency, convenience, and quality of life for residents and visitors alike.

Let's dive in.

What is a smart city?

A big part of this ICT framework is an intelligent network of connected objects and machines (a digital city ) transmitting data using wireless technology and the cloud.

Cloud-based IoT applications receive, analyze, and manage data in real-time to help municipalities, enterprises, and citizens make better decisions that improve quality of life.

Citizens engage with smart city ecosystems using smartphones, mobile devices, and connected cars and homes. Pairing devices and data with a city's physical infrastructure and services can cut costs and improve sustainability.

Communities can improve energy distribution , streamline trash collection , decrease traffic congestion, and improve air quality with help from the IoT.

Smart cities are examples of massive IoT use cases.

For instance,

Connected traffic lights receive data from sensors and cars, adjusting light cadence and timing to respond to real-time traffic and reducing road congestion.
Connected cars can communicate with parking meters and electric vehicle (EV)charging docks and direct drivers to the nearest available spot.
Smart garbage cans automatically send data to waste management companies and schedule pick-up as needed versus a pre-planned schedule.
Citizens' smartphones become their mobile driver's license and ID cards with digital credentials, which speeds up and simplifies access to city and local government services.

These smart city technologies are optimizing infrastructure, mobility, public services, and utilities.

MORE : How smart is your city? (January 2023) (Infographic)

Why do we need smart cities?

Urbanization is a non-ending phenomenon.

Today, 54% of people worldwide live in cities, a proportion that's expected to reach 66% by 2050 .

With population growth, urbanization will add another 2.5 billion people to cities over the next three decades.

Environmental, social, and economic sustainability is a must to keep pace with this rapid expansion taxing our cities' resources.

One hundred ninety-three countries agreed upon the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda in September 2015 at the United Nations.

But we all know how centralized decisions and actions can take time, and the clock is ticking.

The good news?

Citizens and local authorities are more agile in launching swift initiatives, and smart city technology is paramount to achieving these goals.

How is IoT technology making cities smarter and better?

Secure wireless connectivity and IoT technology are transforming traditional elements of city life - like streetlights - into next-generation intelligent lighting platforms with expanded capabilities.

The scope includes integrating solar power and connecting to a cloud-based central control system with other ecosystem assets.

These solutions shine far beyond simple lighting needs.

High-power-embedded LEDs alert commuters about traffic issues, provide severe weather warnings, and provide a heads-up when fires arise.
Streetlights can also detect free parking spaces and E.V. charging docks and alert drivers where to find an open spot via a mobile app. Charging might even be possible from the lamppost itself in some locations!

Exciting stuff!

But how does it all fit together?

What makes smart cities successful

In addition to people, dwellings, commerce, and traditional urban infrastructure, there are four essential elements necessary for thriving smart cities:

Pervasive wireless connectivity
Security you can trust in
Flexible monetization schemes

Let's break it down.

What's the best wireless technology for smart cities?

The first building block of any smart city application is reliable, pervasive wireless connectivity.

While there's no one-size-fits-all, evolving Low Power Wide Area Network ( LPWAN ) technologies are well suited to most smart city applications for their cost efficiency and ubiquity.

These technologies include LTE Cat M, NB-IoT, LoRa, Bluetooth, and others that all contribute to the fabric of connected cities.

The advent of 5G technology is expected to be a watershed event that propels smart city technology into the mainstream and accelerates new deployments.

But only with a few more elements…

Opening the data vault

Historically, governments, enterprises, and individuals have held their data close to their pockets, sharing as little as possible with others.

Today, open data is redefining the digital city.

Privacy concerns and fear of security breaches have far outweighed the perceived value of sharing information (see Portland and privacy ).

However, a key enabler of sustainable smart cities is that all participants in the complex ecosystem share information and combine it with contextual data analyzed in real time.

This is how informed decisions are made in real time.

Multiple sectors must cooperate to achieve sustainable outcomes by analyzing real-time contextual information shared among sector-specific information and operational technology (O.T.) systems.

The conclusion?

Data management (and access to this information) represents the backbone of the digital city.

Stay with us. Here is what we mean.

Examples of smart cities

New york city.

Below are helpful links to some of New York City's significant initiatives mentioned in the video above.

The New York City Department of Transportation's Midtown in Motion is a congestion management system that has improved travel times on Midtown's avenues by 10%.
The NYCx Challenges initiative from the NYC Mayor's Office of the Chief Technology Officer invites entrepreneurs, technologists, and tech professionals to participate in open competitions and propose bold ideas that solve real urban needs such as pollution, income inequality, and transport (site closed).
LinkNYC provides free super-fast free Wi-Fi , phone calls, device charging, and a tablet to access city services, maps, and directions. It's a unique communications network replacing payphones across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island.
Cyber NYC is the city's strategic investment to dominate cybersecurity . It aims to grow New York City's cybersecurity workforce , help companies drive innovation and build networks and community spaces .
MyNYCHA mobile app and web portal allow public housing residents to manage services online. It addresses over 300 public developments across New York City. Launched in 2015, MyNYCHA is a free service that puts the repair process in residents' hands. Residents can submit, schedule, and manage work tickets online. They can also subscribe to alerts for outages in their developments, view inspection appointments, and pay their rent.
Biking in New York City : read the J uly 2019 plan for cycling in the city.
Automated water meters in NYC: Automated Meter Reading systems consist of small devices connected to individual water meters. They send daily readings to a computerized billing system.
The My DEP Account lets New Yorkers track consumption from home. The system eliminates the need for a water meter reader to visit the premises. It allows the Department of Environmental Protection to monitor citywide consumption more closely and manage the city's water supply system more effectively.
New York's data report - Open Data for All - provides free public data published by various local agencies. This tool opens data for people to make a difference in their communities—including educators, students, artists, builders, small business owners, advocates, reporters, and community board members. It also means open data for the 300,000 workers who make New York City safer, cleaner, and more equitable.
More on the New York City Internet of Things strategy and IoT progress report (December 20 2021.)

Amsterdam Smart City

Amsterdam is a shining example of a well-connected smart city reaping the rewards of opening the data vault. The Smart City initiative began in 2009 and included over 170 projects.

It also shares traffic and transportation data with interested parties, such as developers, who then create mapping apps connected to the city's transport systems.

Now, navigating the city is a snap for all.

There's more.

The city built autonomous delivery boats called ' roboats ' to keep things moving in a timely fashion.

It also supported a floating village of houses, solving the city's overcrowding problem with a sustainable, energy-efficient alternative. Power is generated within communities, and homes receive water straight from the river and filter it within their tanks.

None of this is possible without shared data.

City data is available online for all.

Lessons from Amsterdam's Smart City initiative from the MIT Sloan Management Review

Here is another example.

Antwerp and the city of things

Antwerp is a partner in the E.U.'s CITADEL project. It explores the role of technology in a collaborative government.

The city is also about to create Europe's largest smart zone.

Copenhagen Smart City

Copenhagen is known as one of the smartest cities in the world and mobilizes expertise worldwide.

The city is leveraging open data to collaborate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop an innovative intelligent bike system .

Embedded with sensors that provide real-time information to riders and administrators, data is shared to monitor and manage air quality and traffic congestion.

Technologies to create data-driven solutions that suit Copenhagen and its citizens
Singapore has been ranked the world's smartest city. What does a smart city look like on the streets and in the homes of Singapore?
In India, Bhopal is ranked #1 in the new ranking released by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (Times of India, February 7 2021.)
Dholera smart city : One of the first smart cities in India

While data sharing is essential, opening the vault also expands the cyber-attack surface area.

So, how do we keep data private from the masses while sharing it among stakeholders?

Can smart cities be secured and trusted?

In digital cities, connected cameras, intelligent road systems, and public safety monitoring systems can provide an added layer of protection and emergency support to aid citizens when needed.

But what about protecting smart cities themselves from vulnerabilities?
How can we defend against hacking, cyber-attacks, and data theft?
In cities where multiple participants share information, how do we trust that participants are who they say they are?
And how do we know the data they report is true and accurate?

The answers lie in physical data vaults, strong authentication, and I.D. management solutions.

Smart cities can only work if we can trust them.

Four core security objectives for smart city solutions

All ecosystem partners - governments, enterprises, software providers, device manufacturers, energy providers, and network service providers - must do their part and integrate solutions that abide by four core security objectives:

Availability: Without actionable, real-time, and reliable data access, the smart city can't thrive. How information is collected, distilled, and shared is critical, and security solutions must avoid adverse effects on availability.
Integrity: Smart cities depend on reliable and accurate data. Measures must be taken to ensure that data is accurate and free from manipulation.
Confidentiality: Some of the collected, stored, and analyzed data will include sensitive details about consumers. Steps must be taken to prevent unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information.
Accountability: Users of a system must be responsible for their actions. Their interactions with sensitive systems should be logged and associated with a specific user. These logs should be difficult to forge and have reliable integrity protection.

Strong authentication and I.D. management solutions must be integrated into the ecosystem to ensure data is shared only with authorized parties to achieve these core security objectives.

The solutions also protect backend systems from intrusion and hacking.

Thankfully, legislation is being introduced to address threats and potential market failure due to growing digital security concerns.

Like the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act in the U.S. , signed on December 4 2020, or the U.K. IoT security law (not passed yet in June 2021), legislation will help establish minimum security requirements for connected devices.

Show me the Money: how do we monetize smart cities?

Data is the new oil in the age of IoT and smart cities.

For smart cities to thrive, we must establish sustainable commerce models that facilitate the success of all ecosystem players.

The software must be woven into the fabric of IoT solutions to benefit all ecosystem contributors; this includes OEMs, developers, integrators, governments, etc.

Each member's intellectual property needs to be valued and rewarded.

Subscription software capabilities enable new business models that allow each contributor to extract value from their contribution to the ecosystem.

Subscription-based models offer a way to monetize hardware and software to build smart infrastructures and spread out expenses, moving away from substantial one-time CAPEX spending.

For example, expensive medical equipment like MRI scanners can be sold on a cost-per-scan basis rather than as a one-time upfront expense for hospitals. This creates a win-win situation for hospitals and suppliers alike.
And one day soon, cities will offer affordable subscriptions to fleets of vehicles shared between owners who may choose from an array of custom options. This move could radically reduce traffic and optimize traffic patterns and ride-sharing.

As urban areas continue to expand and grow, smart city technology is developing, enhancing sustainability and better serving humanity.

By leveraging pervasive connectivity, open data, end-to-end security, and software monetization solutions, we can align evolving smart city needs for a much-improved experience for all ecosystem partners.

More resources on smart cities

Top 50 Smart City Governments in 2021 ( Eden Strategy Institute - March 31 2021)
Top 10 smart cities in the world : London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Berlin, Amsterdam, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Forbes July 8 2020
Top 10 smart cities in the United States : New York, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, San Diego, Miami, and Houston. IESE business school. Cities in motion 2020 .
The top 3 smart cities in Canada (Cities in motion - October 2020) are Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.
India's Smart Cities Mission : The Indian Government's program for smart city development
Smart cities in India : India's smart cities challenge nominees
Is Singapore the world's smartest city ? by Thales
The European innovation partnership on smart cities and communities ( the European Commission )
Six essential technologies make smart cities : smart energy, transportation, data, infrastructure, mobility, and devices. TechRepublic August 2016
Impact of the Internet of things on smart cities KPMG May 2019

Intelligent infrastructure pilot launched in Texas (March 11 2021)

Seven ways cities are getting smarter by Thales
The pandemic accelerates the rise of digital cities (April 1 2021)
Sidewalk Labs in Toronto : what's next? (May 2020)
Smart ports : Examples around the world

What does "smart grid" mean?

IoT regulations (July 2021)

Now it's your turn

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Centre plans to operationalise high speed corridors, award new projects

Highway ministry said it has deliberated on 100-day plan for new government.

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Centre plans mega highways constructions to replace bharatmala pariyojana, mumbai coastal road project: all you need to know about the toll-free road, expect completion of 4 more smart cities, logistics park by fy25: nicdc ceo, budgetary allocation to road ministry jumps to rs 2.7 trillion in 2023-24, nitin gadkari approves rs 3,890.45 cr for nh-913 construction in arunachal, india-uk fta: work in progress to resolve issues, says commerce ministry, unemployment rate in urban areas dips to 6.7% in march quarter: govt survey, coal india, nmdc, ongc to scout for critical mineral assets abroad, taking the heat off: a thought for workers toiling at sweltering sites, india's trade deficit widens to $19.1 billion in april: commerce ministry.

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Office of the Mayor

City of Cleveland seeks residents’ reactions to parks and recreation master plan draft recommendations

Friday, May 10, 2024

Open house and pop-up sessions hosted by MOCAP and Olin Studios will kick off Tuesday, May 14

May 10, 2024 — Cleveland — The Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects (MOCAP) is in the second phase of planning the future of parks and recreation in the city of Cleveland. As preliminary recommendations for the long-range plan have been drafted, the City seeks reactions from residents. With that, a series of open houses are scheduled for May 14, 15, 16, and 17, on both the west and east sides of town.

“We are excited to share this draft with the community to get additional feedback and to ensure that what we heard in the first round of public engagement is well reflected,” said MOCAP Director James DeRosa. “The team is grateful for the time that everyone has dedicated to this process so far. Our parks and public spaces belong to the residents, and we are committed to making sure these spaces meet the community's needs.”

The open houses are being organized by OLIN, the Philadelphia-based landscape architecture and planning firm selected to guide the planning process.

“Last summer, over 1,500 Clevelanders told us what they would like parks and recreation in the city to look like in the future,” says Lucinda Sanders, Design Partner and CEO of OLIN.

Led by MOCAP, the 15-year master plan will create a roadmap that ensures just and fair capital investment in parks and recreation, provides equitable connections to quality parks and recreation activities while meeting the needs of city residents, community groups, and other stakeholders. During the upcoming open houses, residents will be able to view the draft recommendations and provide feedback.

“We want to give Clevelanders the opportunity to see what we learned last summer, to review the major components of the long-range plan and to provide their reactions to help us further refine the plan,” Sanders continues.

Seeking a diverse range of participation to ensure residents’ voices are heard and translated in the final plans, open houses will be held at the following locations:

Michael Zone Neighborhood Resource & Recreation Center, 6301 Lorain Ave., on Tuesday, May 14
Collinwood Neighborhood Resource & Recreation Center, 16300 Lakeshore Blvd., on Wednesday, May 15
Estabrook Neighborhood Resource & Recreation Center, 4125 Fulton Road, on Thursday, May 16 and
Lonnie Burten Neighborhood Resource & Recreation Center, 2511 E. 46th Street, on Friday, May 17

All open houses will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Light meals will be served.

There will also be two pop-up sessions to learn more about the draft plan:

Wednesday, May 15 – Pop-Up at Senior Day at Public Auditorium (500 Lakeside Ave.), 10 a.m. to noon
Monday, May 20 – Pop-Up at Kerruish Park (17200 Tarkington Ave. by the pool) with The Trust for Public Land and the Cleveland Parks & Greenspace Coalition, 3 to 6 p.m.

“Ultimately, the City seeks to create a dynamic and equitable network of parks and recreational facilities, enhance the quality of life and natural environment, preserve and steward the city’s rich cultural identities, and evolve with the needs of current and future generations of Clevelanders,” Sanders adds.

The three-phase planning process is expected to be completed this year. The goal of the second phase is to deliver a long-range plan that will reconcile existing conditions with the community needs assessment conducted last summer. The third phase entails a strategic plan outlining the best methods to finance and implement the long-range plan.

The City of Cleveland currently operates 179 unique parks and recreation sites, including 155 city parks, 23 recreation centers, and 1 golf course that total nearly 1,760 acres. These sites include 111 baseball fields, 108 playgrounds, 88 basketball courts, 70 tennis courts, 40 indoor or outdoor swimming pools, and hundreds of other public amenities and programs.

To learn more about the project visit www.cleparksrecplan.com.

ABOUT THE MAYORS OFFICE OF CAPITAL PROJECTS (MOCAP)

The mission of MOCAP is to provide for the planning, designing, construction, and preservation of the City of Cleveland's facilities and infrastructure through collaborative and comprehensive planning, leadership in management, excellence in sustainable design and technical expertise, and quality construction based on integrity and professionalism. The office oversees the Division of Architecture and Site Development, the division of Engineering and Construction, and The Division of Real Estate.

ABOUT OLIN STUDIOS

OLIN is a nationally and internationally recognized studio with more than 40 years of experience in parks and recreation system planning and designing for the public realm. OLIN projects include a 25-year master plan to transform the post-industrial land along Philadelphia’s Delaware River, the campus and gardens at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, the award-winning 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington, D.C., and the parks master plan for Oklahoma City. OLIN is also the team behind the Eastman Reading Garden at the Cleveland Public Library and the plaza and greenspace surrounding the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building. More about OLIN and the studio’s work can be found at parks.theolinstudio.com

Next phase of on-street smart parking enhancements begins today in Cleveland’s Central Business District

May 13, 2024

Summer Senior Walks begin Wednesday June 26

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Money blog: Santander launches £175 switching offer; Burberry suffers massive profits fall

Taylor Swift is coming to the UK - and bringing her massive economic influence with her. Read this and all the latest consumer and personal finance news in the Money blog - and leave a comment or your money problem in the box below.

Wednesday 15 May 2024 15:30, UK

Burberry suffers massive profits fall as figures 'leave a lot to be desired'
Santander launches £175 switching offer
Vinted forced to apologise to sellers for payment issues
Taylor Swift to bring nearly £1bn boost to economy
UK economy in safe hands 'whoever wins' election, top bank chief tells Sky News

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Ask a question or make a comment

New York has topped the list when it comes to the world's wealthiest cities, with 349,500 millionaires and 60 billionaires.

In its latest report, Henley & Partners found the Big Apple's millionaire population has surged by 48% in the past decade.

And San Francisco came in second place, with 305,700 millionaires and 68 billionaires.

Meanwhile, Tokyo has seen its millionaire population declining by 5% to 298,300 people.

Joe Biden has confirmed he is going to raise the special tariff on electric vehicles coming from China.

The standard US tariff (the amount you have to pay to get goods into a given country) on cars used to stand at 2.5% but then Donald Trump levied an extra 25% tariff on China in 2018.

Now, Mr Biden has gone further and is quadrupling the tariff to 102.5%.

Why is the US doing this?

Our economics and date editor Ed Conway describes the latest move as "one of the biggest issues in economics right now".

He says the move "is partly because the US is worried about competition from China".

China in the past few years has become dominant when it comes to electric cars and their manufacture of the components that go into the vehicles.

But they are not dominant when it comes to electric car imports into the US.

"The US is trying to increase its share but it is going to be difficult," Conway says

"It's only the beginning of a very big saga here and the next question is what about the EU and UK?"

Will it have an impact?

Conway says the new electric vehicle rate "won't affect many goods at all" because the "vast majority of Chinese electric vehicles are going not to America but to Europe and elsewhere", including the UK.

"We're buying loads," he says.

You can watch Conway's analysis here...

Santander has become the latest bank to offer a £175 switching offer on their current accounts, joining First Direct, which relaunched its incentive this month.

The Santander switch is open to both new and existing Santander customers and those eligible will get the payment within 90 days of starting the switch process.

To qualify you must:

Complete the full switch within 60 days of requesting the switch process;
Pay in at least £1,500 within 60 days of requesting the switch;
Set up two active direct debits within 60 days;
Continue to hold the qualifying current account on the day the payment is made.

New customers can switch to a current account online through the Santander website or in branch.

But existing Santander customers must visit a branch to take advantage of this offer .

To qualify for the First Direct incentive you must:

Go through the full Current Account Switch Service (Cass) process;
Transfer a £1,000 balance into the account;
Switch at least two regular payments;
Use their debit card at least five times within 30 days of the account opening.

The chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan has told Sky News he is confident the UK economy will be in safe hands "whoever wins" the election.

Jamie Dimon told Sky's Wilfred Frost that he had met with both Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer and liked that they were both "pro-business".

"Growing the economy is a good thing, and that should benefit everybody," he said.

"Everyone I heard in the Labour and Conservative government are talking about growing the economy, technology, research and development, simplifying regulations and making it easier for people to start and grow businesses.

"Those policies work."

Asked if he was confident the UK economy would be in safe hands no matter who won the election, he replied: "Yeah, I certainly hope so, and we would help whoever wins."

Mr Dimon also said the world "had been through a difficult and weird time".

On the UK specifically, he said: "It's a great country and partner and friend of America."

He said he was "optimistic" about the UK, and said the government should keep investing in "education, work skills and technology".

Here's Mr Dimon's interview in full:

By James Sillars , business news reporter

A solid start to the day for the FTSE 100 despite one of its well known constituents posting a big drop in profits.

The index rose by 0.5% in early dealing to stand at 8,469.

Leading the gainers were industrial and mining stocks.

Among the big names reporting its progress this morning was Burberry.

Its annual results to the end of March showed a 34% fall in operating profits as demand for luxury slowed in the second half.

The company's chief executive, who is in the process of taking the firm more upmarket, said he expected the current year to remain challenging but with a pick-up in sales weighted to the final six months.

Burberry, nevertheless, awarded a 61p per share dividend which was flat on the previous financial year.

Its shares were down by more than 3%.

Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Burberry's latest figures leave a lot to be desired, amid slowing demand for luxury... Not only does this highlight the extent of consumer caution across the globe, it also puts a spotlight on some Burberry-specific issues.

"Refreshing the store estate is all well and good, but only if those costs and charges can be recouped by selling the clothes they hold. While Burberry's brand repositioning has come a long way, it’s not yet sharp enough to slice through to the core of the even more resilient end of the luxury market."

She added: "Slowing trends are being seen across the board in the sector, so these weaker results aren't a total bolt from the blue. The question now will be how quickly demand picks up, and that of course is in the hands of the economy... Burberry faces challenges, but it remains a strong heritage brand, with a lot of the right strategic ideas."

Taylor Swift's Eras Tour has been predicted to provide a £997m boost to the UK economy.

Fans are expected to fork out an average of £848 to see the star on one of her 15 tour dates.

That's according to data from Barclays, which has added up the total spending of the Swifties lucky enough to get a ticket.

After tickets, fans will spend the most on accommodation at around £121, with other notable costs including £111 on travel and £56 on an outfit.

Those visiting London, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Cardiff for the concert are expected to spend £79 each on official merchandise, as well as £59 on a pre-show meal.

The average amount spent on an Eras Tour ticket is £206, yet for 14% of fans, including those who purchased VIP ticket packages with premium seating and exclusive merchandise, the total exceeds £400.

Dr Peter Brooks, chief behavioural scientist at Barclays, said fans of "cultural icons" like Swift have a "powerful" spending power.

"Whoever came up with the phrase 'money can't buy happiness' clearly wasn't a Swiftie," he said.

"When it comes to cultural icons like Taylor Swift - like we saw with Elvis and Beatlemania in the 50s and 60s - supporters have such a strong connection to the artist and to the rest of the fandom that the desire to spend becomes even more powerful.

"For non-fans, £848 may seem like an enormous amount to splash out on a concert - but for Eras Tour ticketholders, every pound they spend is an investment in the memories they'll create."

Every Wednesday we get Michelin chefs to pick their favourite Cheap Eats where they live and when they cook at home. This week we speak to Andy Beynon, chef patron of Behind in London - which was awarded a Michelin star after being open for just 20 days.

Hi Andy, c an you tell us your favourite places in London where you can get a meal for two for less than £40?

I love Lahore Kebab House in Whitechapel. It's family run and I've been going there for about 15 years. I used to go with my dad - we'd get a couple of lagers from the shop next door, then tuck into lamb chops, tarka daal, the Peshwari naan, which is always cooked fresh on the tandoor, and all the dips on the menu.

You can't beat a "That Spicy D" from Dom's Subs . There's just something about that burnt chilli mayo and schiacciata piccante. It's my favourite lunch to have on the go, and totally worth the mess.

Umut 2000 in Dalston is my go-to for a kebab fix. They also do this amazing chargrilled lamb mince on a bed of tomato sauce with yoghurt and clarified butter. So good.

What's your go-to cheap meal at home?

I don't cook at home often, but when I do it's usually a big pot of spicy daal. It's super easy to make and keeps well in the fridge or the freezer. My secret ingredient for making the perfect daal is condensed milk - simply add a spoonful at the end to balance all of the spice.

We've spoken to lots of top chefs and bloggers - check out their cheap eats from around the country here...

Vinted has apologised for a tech issue that has left its sellers facing long delays to withdraw their cash.

Users have been complaining over the past few weeks about their balance not updating quickly enough after being told they had been paid...

We reached out to platform about the issue - it said its payment service provider Mangopay was aware of the problem and was "in the process of resolving" affected cases.

It said a "very small number" of Vinted members have experienced an issue with funds being received by banks after payouts had been initiated.

"The large majority of payouts are successfully completed every day," it added.

"Vinted is in constant contact with Mangopay to resolve any cases brought to our attention, however, there may be a further delay as a result, for which we apologise.

"Many cases have already been resolved and we are working as quickly as we can to help resolve the remaining cases."

Mangopay processes and stores transactions made through Vinted and then pays the cash into users' bank accounts.

It told us part of its legal obligations require it to verify users' identities for the payment process to be successful.

"Our team works to carry out this verification process as quickly as possible so that users can continue using their accounts as normal," it said.

"Marketplaces and platforms often have complex payment needs and as a regulated financial institution, we take our compliance, due diligence processes and regulatory obligations very seriously."

However, it added that from "time to time" the process can be delayed, which means it needs to withhold funds for a certain amount of time, or it "may experience issues with the payout process".

"We apologise for any delays in receiving payments caused as a result of this and are working with Vinted to resolve each case as quickly as possible," it added.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's Archewell Foundation has been labelled "delinquent" in the US for failing to submit annual records.

A letter was sent to the charity on 3 May by by California's Registry of Charities and Fundraisers, saying it has been "listed as delinquent" for "failing to submit required annual report(s) and/or renewal fees".

The letter said an organisation listed as delinquent is banned from "soliciting or disbursing charitable funds" and its registration may be "suspended or revoked".

It is understood that a physical cheque was sent by Archewell Foundation but not received, and a new one has been sent to resolve the issue.

It is believed the charity was only made aware of this when the delinquency notice was published.

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TOKYO, May 15 (Xinhua) — Tokyo police plan to refer to prosecutors an 18-year-old man for allegedly using camera-equipped smart glasses to cheat on an entrance exam at Waseda University, local media reported on Wednesday.

The Tokyo resident, who was a senior high school student at the time of the alleged offense, is suspected of using the electronic glasses to take photos of exam papers and post them on social media to solicit answers on Feb. 16 during the entrance test for Waseda University’s School of Creative Science and Engineering, Kyodo News reported, citing investigative sources.

The suspect allegedly had used answers that he had received on social media in that exam and was later disqualified.

The case came to light after a person who responded to one of his questions online contacted Waseda University, the report said.

The police plan to file criminal papers with prosecutors against him as early as Thursday on suspicion of “obstructing operations” of the private university, it added.

The man said during voluntary questioning that he was worried he may not get into a university after performing poorly on standardized tests and being rejected by national universities, according to the police.

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Miano vows to get rid of counterfeit goods in the market

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A Plan to Remake the Middle East

While talks for a cease-fire between israel and hamas continue, another set of negotiations is happening behind the scenes..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

Today, if and when Israel and Hamas reach a deal for a ceasefire fire, the United States will immediately turn to a different set of negotiations over a grand diplomatic bargain that it believes could rebuild Gaza and remake the Middle East. My colleague Michael Crowley has been reporting on that plan and explains why those involved in it believe they have so little time left to get it done.

It’s Wednesday, May 8.

Michael, I want to start with what feels like a pretty dizzying set of developments in this conflict over the past few days. Just walk us through them?

Well, over the weekend, there was an intense round of negotiations in an effort, backed by the United States, to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

The latest ceasefire proposal would reportedly see as many as 33 Israeli hostages released in exchange for potentially hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

US officials were very eager to get this deal.

Pressure for a ceasefire has been building ahead of a threatened Israeli assault on Rafah.

Because Israel has been threatening a military offensive in the Southern Palestinian city of Rafah, where a huge number of people are crowded.

Fleeing the violence to the North. And now they’re packed into Rafah. Exposed and vulnerable, they need to be protected.

And the US says it would be a humanitarian catastrophe on top of the emergency that’s already underway.

Breaking news this hour — very important breaking news. An official Hamas source has told The BBC that it does accept a proposal for a ceasefire deal in Gaza.

And for a few hours on Monday, it looked like there might have been a major breakthrough when Hamas put out a statement saying that it had accepted a negotiating proposal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the ceasefire proposal does not meet his country’s requirements. But Netanyahu says he will send a delegation of mediators to continue those talks. Now, the terms —

But those hopes were dashed pretty quickly when the Israelis took a look at what Hamas was saying and said that it was not a proposal that they had agreed to. It had been modified.

And overnight —

Israeli troops stormed into Rafah. Video showing tanks crashing over a sign at the entrance of the city.

— the Israelis launched a partial invasion of Rafah.

It says Hamas used the area to launch a deadly attack on Israeli troops over the weekend.

And they have now secured a border crossing at the Southern end of Gaza and are conducting targeted strikes. This is not yet the full scale invasion that President Biden has adamantly warned Israel against undertaking, but it is an escalation by Israel.

So while all that drama might suggest that these talks are in big trouble, these talks are very much still alive and ongoing and there is still a possibility of a ceasefire deal.

And the reason that’s so important is not just to stop the fighting in Gaza and relieve the suffering there, but a ceasefire also opens the door to a grand diplomatic bargain, one that involves Israel and its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians, and would have very far-reaching implications.

And what is that grand bargain. Describe what you’re talking about?

Well, it’s incredibly ambitious. It would reshape Israel’s relationship with its Arab neighbors, principally Saudi Arabia. But it’s important to understand that this is a vision that has actually been around since well before October 7. This was a diplomatic project that President Biden had been investing in and negotiating actually in a very real and tangible way long before the Hamas attacks and the Gaza war.

And President Biden was looking to build on something that President Trump had done, which was a series of agreements that the Trump administration struck in which Israel and some of its Arab neighbors agreed to have normal diplomatic relations for the first time.

Right, they’re called the Abraham Accords.

That’s right. And, you know, Biden doesn’t like a lot of things, most things that Trump did. But he actually likes this, because the idea is that they contribute to stability and economic integration in the Middle East, the US likes Israel having friends and likes having a tight-knit alliance against Iran.

President Biden agrees with the Saudis and with the Israelis, that Iran is really the top threat to everybody here. So, how can you build on this? How can you expand it? Well, the next and biggest step would be normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

And the Saudis have made clear that they want to do this and that they’re ready to do this. They weren’t ready to do it in the Trump years. But Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, has made clear he wants to do it now.

So this kind of triangular deal began to take shape before October 7, in which the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia would enter this three way agreement in which everyone would get something that they wanted.

And just walk through what each side gets in this pre-October 7th version of these negotiations?

So for Israel, you get normalized ties with its most important Arab neighbor and really the country that sets the tone for the whole Muslim world, which is Saudi Arabia of course. It makes Israel feel safer and more secure. Again, it helps to build this alliance against Iran, which Israel considers its greatest threat, and it comes with benefits like economic ties and travel and tourism. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been very open, at least before October 7th, that this was his highest diplomatic and foreign policy priority.

For the Saudis, the rationale is similar when it comes to Israel. They think that it will bring stability. They like having a more explicitly close ally against Iran. There are economic and cultural benefits. Saudi Arabia is opening itself up in general, encouraging more tourism.

But I think that what’s most important to the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is what he can get from the United States. And what he has been asking for are a couple of essential things. One is a security agreement whose details have always been a little bit vague, but I think essentially come down to reliable arms supplies from the United States that are not going to be cut off or paused on a whim, as he felt happened when President Biden stopped arms deliveries in 2021 because of how Saudi was conducting its war in Yemen. The Saudis were furious about that.

Saudi Arabia also wants to start a domestic nuclear power program. They are planning for a very long-term future, possibly a post-oil future. And they need help getting a nuclear program off the ground.

And they want that from the US?

And they want that from the US.

Now, those are big asks from the us. But from the perspective of President Biden, there are some really enticing things about this possible agreement. One is that it will hopefully produce more stability in the region. Again, the US likes having a tight-knit alliance against Iran.

The US also wants to have a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia. You know, despite the anger at Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, the Biden administration recognizes that given the Saudis control over global oil production and their strategic importance in the Middle East, they need to have a good relationship with them. And the administration has been worried about the influence of China in the region and with the Saudis in particular.

So this is an opportunity for the US to draw the Saudis closer. Whatever our moral qualms might be about bin Salman and the Saudi government, this is an opportunity to bring the Saudis closer, which is something the Biden administration sees as a strategic benefit.

All three of these countries — big, disparate countries that normally don’t see eye-to-eye, this was a win-win-win on a military, economic, and strategic front.

That’s right. But there was one important actor in the region that did not see itself as winning, and that was the Palestinians.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

First, it’s important to understand that the Palestinians have always expected that the Arab countries in the Middle East would insist that Israel recognize a Palestinian state before those countries were willing to essentially make total peace and have normal relations with Israel.

So when the Abraham Accords happened in the Trump administration, the Palestinians felt like they’d been thrown under the bus because the Abraham Accords gave them virtually nothing. But the Palestinians did still hold out hope that Saudi Arabia would be their savior. And for years, Saudi Arabia has said that Israel must give the Palestinians a state if there’s going to be a normal relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Now the Palestinians see the Saudis in discussions with the US and Israel about a normalization agreement, and there appears to be very little on offer for the Palestinians. And they are feeling like they’re going to be left out in the cold here.

Right. And in the minds of the Palestinians, having already been essentially sold out by all their other Arab neighbors, the prospect that Saudi Arabia, of all countries, the most important Muslim Arab country in the region, would sell them out, had to be extremely painful.

It was a nightmare scenario for them. And in the minds of many analysts and US officials, this was a factor, one of many, in Hamas’s decision to stage the October 7th attacks.

Hamas, like other Palestinian leaders, was seeing the prospect that the Middle East was moving on and essentially, in their view, giving up on the Palestinian cause, and that Israel would be able to have friendly, normal relations with Arab countries around the region, and that it could continue with hardline policies toward the Palestinians and a refusal, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said publicly, to accept a Palestinian state.

Right. So Michael, once Hamas carries out the October 7th attacks in an effort to destroy a status quo that it thinks is leaving them less and less relevant, more and more hopeless, including potentially this prospect that Saudi Arabia is going to normalize relations with Israel, what happens to these pre-October 7th negotiations between the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel?

Well, I think there was a snap assumption that these talks were dead and buried. That they couldn’t possibly survive a cataclysm like this.

But then something surprising happened. It became clear that all the parties were still determined to pull-off the normalization.

And most surprisingly of all, perhaps, was the continued eagerness of Saudi Arabia, which publicly was professing outrage over the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks, but privately was still very much engaged in these conversations and trying to move them forward.

And in fact, what has happened is that the scope of this effort has grown substantially. October 7th didn’t kill these talks. It actually made them bigger, more complicated, and some people would argue, more important than ever.

We’ll be right back.

Michael, walk us through what exactly happens to these three-way negotiations after October 7th that ends up making them, as you just said, more complicated and more important than ever?

Well, it’s more important than ever because of the incredible need in Gaza. And it’s going to take a deal like this and the approval of Saudi Arabia to unlock the kind of massive reconstruction project required to essentially rebuild Gaza from the rubble. Saudi Arabia and its Arab friends are also going to be instrumental in figuring out how Gaza is governed, and they might even provide troops to help secure it. None of those things are going to happen without a deal like this.

Fascinating.

But this is all much more complicated now because the price for a deal like this has gone up.

And by price, you mean?

What Israel would have to give up. [MUSIC PLAYING]

From Saudi Arabia’s perspective, you have an Arab population that is furious at Israel. It now feels like a really hard time to do a normalization deal with the Israelis. It was never going to be easy, but this is about as bad a time to do it as there has been in a generation at least. And I think that President Biden and the people around him understand that the status quo between Israel and the Palestinians is intolerable and it is going to lead to chaos and violence indefinitely.

So now you have two of the three parties to this agreement, the Saudis and the Americans, basically asking a new price after October 7th, and saying to the Israelis, if we’re going to do this deal, it has to not only do something for the Palestinians, it has to do something really big. You have to commit to the creation of a Palestinian state. Now, I’ll be specific and say that what you hear the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, say is that the agreement has to include an irreversible time-bound path to a Palestinian state.

We don’t know exactly what that looks like, but it’s some kind of a firm commitment, the likes of which the world and certainly the Israelis have not made before.

Something that was very much not present in the pre-October 7th vision of this negotiation. So much so that, as we just talked about, the Palestinians were left feeling completely out in the cold and furious at it.

That’s right. There was no sign that people were thinking that ambitiously about the Palestinians in this deal before October 7th. And the Palestinians certainly felt like they weren’t going to get much out of it. And that has completely changed now.

So, Michael, once this big new dimension after October 7th, which is the insistence by Saudi Arabia and the US that there be a Palestinian state or a path to a Palestinian state, what is the reaction specifically from Israel, which is, of course, the third major party to this entire conversation?

Well, Israel, or at least its political leadership, hates it. You know, this is just an extremely tough sell in Israel. It would have been a tough sell before October 7th. It’s even harder now.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is completely unrepentantly open in saying that there’s not going to be a Palestinian state on his watch. He won’t accept it. He says that it’s a strategic risk to his country. He says that it would, in effect, reward Hamas.

His argument is that terrorism has forced a conversation about statehood onto the table that wasn’t there before October 7th. Sure, it’s always in the background. It’s a perennial issue in global affairs, but it was not something certainly that the US and Israel’s Arab neighbors were actively pushing. Netanyahu also has — you know, he governs with the support of very right-wing members of a political coalition that he has cobbled together. And that coalition is quite likely to fall apart if he does embrace a Palestinian state or a path to a Palestinian state.

Now, he might be able to cobble together some sort of alternative, but it creates a political crisis for him.

And finally, you know, I think in any conversation about Israel, it’s worth bearing in mind something you hear from senior US officials these days, which is that although there is often finger pointing at Netanyahu and a desire to blame Netanyahu as this obstructionist who won’t agree to deals, what they say is Netanyahu is largely reflecting his population and the political establishment of his country, not just the right-wingers in his coalition who are clearly extremist.

But actually the prevailing views of the Israeli public. And the Israeli public and their political leaders across the spectrum right now with few exceptions, are not interested in talking about a Palestinian state when there are still dozens and dozens of Israeli hostages in tunnels beneath Gaza.

So it very much looks like this giant agreement that once seemed doable before October 7th might be more important to everyone involved than ever, given that it’s a plan for rebuilding Gaza and potentially preventing future October 7th’s from happening, but because of this higher price that Israel would have to pay, which is the acceptance of a Palestinian state, it seems from everything you’re saying, that this is more and more out of reach than ever before and hard to imagine happening in the immediate future. So if the people negotiating it are being honest, Michael, are they ready to acknowledge that it doesn’t look like this is going to happen?

Well, not quite yet. As time goes by, they certainly say it’s getting harder and harder, but they’re still trying, and they still think there’s a chance. But both the Saudis and the Biden administration understand that there’s very little time left to do this.

Well, what do you mean there’s very little time left? It would seem like time might benefit this negotiation in that it might give Israel distance from October 7th to think potentially differently about a Palestinian state?

Potentially. But Saudi Arabia wants to get this deal done in the Biden administration because Mohammed bin Salman has concluded this has to be done under a Democratic president.

Because Democrats in Congress are going to be very reluctant to approve a security agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

It’s important to understand that if there is a security agreement, that’s something Congress is going to have to approve. And you’re just not going to get enough Democrats in Congress to support a deal with Saudi Arabia, who a lot of Democrats don’t like to begin with, because they see them as human rights abusers.

But if a Democratic president is asking them to do it, they’re much more likely to go along.

Right. So Saudi Arabia fears that if Biden loses and Trump is president, that those same Democrats would balk at this deal in a way that they wouldn’t if it were being negotiated under President Biden?

Exactly. Now, from President Biden’s perspective, politically, think about a president who’s running for re-election, who is presiding right now over chaos in the Middle East, who doesn’t seem to have good answers for the Israeli-Palestinian question, this is an opportunity for President Biden to deliver what could be at least what he would present as a diplomatic masterstroke that does multiple things at once, including creating a new pathway for Israel and the Palestinians to coexist, to break through the logjam, even as he is also improving Israel’s relations with Saudi Arabia.

So Biden and the Crown Prince hope that they can somehow persuade Bibi Netanyahu that in spite of all the reasons that he thinks this is a terrible idea, that this is a bet worth taking on Israel’s and the region’s long-term security and future?

That’s right. Now, no one has explained very clearly exactly how this is going to work, and it’s probably going to require artful diplomacy, possibly even a scenario where the Israelis would agree to something that maybe means one thing to them and means something else to other people. But Biden officials refuse to say that it’s hopeless and they refuse to essentially take Netanyahu’s preliminary no’s for an answer. And they still see some way that they can thread this incredibly narrow needle.

Michael, I’m curious about a constituency that we haven’t been talking about because they’re not at the table in these discussions that we are talking about here. And that would be Hamas. How does Hamas feel about the prospect of such a deal like this ever taking shape. Do they see it as any kind of a victory and vindication for what they did on October 7th?

So it’s hard to know exactly what Hamas’s leadership is thinking. I think they can feel two things. I think they can feel on the one hand, that they have established themselves as the champions of the Palestinian people who struck a blow against Israel and against a diplomatic process that was potentially going to leave the Palestinians out in the cold.

At the same time, Hamas has no interest in the kind of two-state solution that the US is trying to promote. They think Israel should be destroyed. They think the Palestinian state should cover the entire geography of what is now Israel, and they want to lead a state like that. And that’s not something that the US, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else is going to tolerate.

So what Hamas wants is to fight, to be the leader of the Palestinian people, and to destroy Israel. And they’re not interested in any sort of a peace process or statehood process.

It seems very clear from everything you’ve said here that neither Israel nor Hamas is ready to have the conversation about a grand bargain diplomatic program. And I wonder if that inevitably has any bearing on the ceasefire negotiations that are going on right now between the two of them that are supposed to bring this conflict to some sort of an end, even if it’s just temporary?

Because if, as you said, Michael, a ceasefire opens the door to this larger diplomatic solution, and these two players don’t necessarily want that larger diplomatic solution, doesn’t that inevitably impact their enthusiasm for even reaching a ceasefire?

Well, it certainly doesn’t help. You know, this is such a hellish problem. And of course, you first have the question of whether Israel and Hamas can make a deal on these immediate issues, including the hostages, Palestinian prisoners, and what the Israeli military is going to do, how long a ceasefire might last.

But on top of that, you have these much bigger diplomatic questions that are looming over them. And it’s not clear that either side is ready to turn and face those bigger questions.

So while for the Biden administration and for Saudi Arabia, this is a way out of this crisis, these larger diplomatic solutions, it’s not clear that it’s a conversation that the two parties that are actually at war here are prepared to start having.

Well, Michael, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

On Tuesday afternoon, under intense pressure from the US, delegations from Israel and Hamas arrived in Cairo to resume negotiations over a potential ceasefire. But in a statement, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear that even with the talks underway, his government would, quote, “continue to wage war against Hamas.”

Here’s what else you need to know today. In a dramatic day of testimony, Stormy Daniels offered explicit details about an alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump that ultimately led to the hush money payment at the center of his trial. Daniels testified that Trump answered the door in pajamas, that he told her not to worry that he was married, and that he did not use a condom when they had sex.

That prompted lawyers for Trump to seek a mistrial based on what they called prejudicial testimony. But the judge in the case rejected that request. And,

We’ve seen a ferocious surge of anti-Semitism in America and around the world.

In a speech on Tuesday honoring victims of the Holocaust, President Biden condemned what he said was the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in the United States after the October 7th attacks on Israel. And he expressed worry that too many Americans were already forgetting the horrors of that attack.

The Jewish community, I want you to know I see your fear, your hurt, and your pain. Let me reassure you, as your president, you’re not alone. You belong. You always have and you always will.

Today’s episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Clare Toeniskoetter, and Rikki Novetsky. It was edited by Liz O. Baylen, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

That’s it for The Daily. I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

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May 13, 2024 • 27:46 How Biden Adopted Trump’s Trade War With China
May 10, 2024 • 27:42 Stormy Daniels Takes the Stand
May 9, 2024 • 34:42 One Strongman, One Billion Voters, and the Future of India
May 8, 2024 • 28:28 A Plan to Remake the Middle East
May 7, 2024 • 27:43 How Changing Ocean Temperatures Could Upend Life on Earth
May 6, 2024 • 29:23 R.F.K. Jr.’s Battle to Get on the Ballot
May 3, 2024 • 25:33 The Protesters and the President
May 2, 2024 • 29:13 Biden Loosens Up on Weed
May 1, 2024 • 35:16 The New Abortion Fight Before the Supreme Court
April 30, 2024 • 27:40 The Secret Push That Could Ban TikTok

Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Michael Crowley

Produced by Nina Feldman , Clare Toeniskoetter and Rikki Novetsky

Edited by Liz O. Baylen

Original music by Marion Lozano , Elisheba Ittoop and Dan Powell

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

If and when Israel and Hamas reach a deal for a cease-fire, the United States will immediately turn to a different set of negotiations over a grand diplomatic bargain that it believes could rebuild Gaza and remake the Middle East.

Michael Crowley, who covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times, explains why those involved in this plan believe they have so little time left to get it done.

On today’s episode

Michael Crowley , a reporter covering the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The New York Times.

A young man is looking out at destroyed buildings from above.

Background reading :

Talks on a cease-fire in the Gaza war are once again at an uncertain stage .

Here’s how the push for a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia looked before Oct. 7 .

From early in the war, President Biden has said that a lasting resolution requires a “real” Palestinian state .

Here’s what Israeli officials are discussing about postwar Gaza.

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Michael Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He has reported from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the secretary of state. More about Michael Crowley

IMAGES

Smart City 2025: Building a Vision and Business Plan for the Future
What is a Smart City
10 Things to Consider in Planning and Building a Smart City
Smart Cities
Infographic: The Anatomy of a Smart City
Capital Smart City

COMMENTS

Creating business models for smart cities: a practical framework
City business models can help city governments embed environmental goals into their strategic plan for smart services. Finally, a holistic business model can help city councils answer calls for innovation in the public sector (Collm and Schedler Citation 2014 ; De Vries, Bekkers, and Tummers Citation 2016 ).
Smart City 2025: Building a Vision and Business Plan for the Future
As technological, demographic, and economic shifts redefine urban centers, local government and business leaders need an updated vision and business plan for the future, with the performance gains to be achieved. To provide them with the required decision support and ROI analytics, ThoughtLab is launching a ground-breaking research program in ...
PDF Creating the Smart Cities of the future
The development of smart cities around the world is gathering pace, with the total value of the global smart city market projected to exceed US$1 trillion by 2020 and US$2.5 trillion by 2025 (see Figure 1). As this growth continues, one of the most important and dynamic aspects of smart cities is the evolution of the roles and relationships ...
Smart Cities: The Role Of Businesses In Improving Digital And ...
The notion of a "smart city" is a helpful way to illustrate the ways we can implement an integrated and comprehensive plan and strategy with great efficiency and natural synergies between ...
Business Models For Smart Cities In The Digital Era
New Business Models. Within the smart cities, global market solutions will account for 69% and services for 31%, according to the same PwC study, while professional services related to planning ...
Want to Build a Smart City? Here Are Some Strategies That Work
The city can achieve at least three things: Increase the safety and security of citizens, ease traffic congestion, and save energy costs. Secondly, before spending the money, think through the ...
(PDF) The Smart City Business Model Canvas-A Smart City Business
The Smart City BMC (SC-BMC) proposed provides a practical framework that supports developing and communicating a more holistic and integrated view of a smart city business model.
PDF Creating Business Models for Smart Cities
Creating Business Models for Smart Cities - ESADE
Smart city technology for a more liveable future
Smart cities put data and digital technology to work to make better decisions and improve the quality of life. More comprehensive, real-time data gives agencies the ability to watch events as they unfold, understand how demand patterns are changing, and respond with faster and lower-cost solutions. Three layers work together to make a smart ...
The Smart City Business Model Canvas—A Smart City Business Modeling
Cities are challenged with increasing population growth and need to implement smart solutions to become more resilient to economic, environmental, and social challenges posed by ongoing urbanization. This study reviewed business model development frameworks and developed a practical tool to help cities assess business models by adapting components of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) and adding ...
Smart city overview
This "connected infrastructure" vision comprises what is known as Smart City 1.0—physical assets networked via sensor technology that generate streams of valuable data from "smart" parking meters, streetlights, and even trash receptacles. For cities that have yet to progress along the smart city journey, this is still a powerful vision.
Smart Cities are Complicated and Costly: Here's How to Build Them
Much promotion of smart cities assumes that municipalities will take a proactive, top-down, technology-first approach to urban progress. Thus far, these initiatives look for some forward-thinking city official (or immensely deep-pocketed private investor) to write a big purchase order for a lot of hardware and software, in the same way an industrial company like Procter & Gamble buys a ...
PDF City of Los Angeles SmartLA 2028
4. Smart cities require local resident and business participation, especially in light of ... implementation plan for impacted City of Los Angeles departments. Ted Ross General Manager and CIO ... speed 5G connectivity across the city. Starting a business will also be much easier by 2028, through our enhanced, one-stop L.A. Business Portal ...
Advancing the Smart City Agenda Nationally
According to Emergen Research, the global market for smart-city software, hardware, and services is predicted to grow from a little more than $400 billion in 2021 to $1.4 trillion in 2030. Governments can encourage greater participation by industry by creating technical standards, such as transmission protocols that enable interoperability ...
7 Elements of a Successful Smart City Strategy
The pressure that growing populations have on systems, infrastructure and housing. Mobility challenges and congestion. Climate change. Air pollution, water, and sanitation. Energy and sustainability. Rapidly changing technology. Competitiveness and ability to attract global talent. A smart city strategy can help solve and overcome these ...
The Big Picture: Business opportunities in smart cities
The Big Picture: Business opportunities in smart cities. The public and private sectors must cooperate to build smart cities. August 22, 2019. Smart cities generate numerous possibilities for collaboration between the public and private sectors. Learn the keys to such cooperation and see if the cities that interest you meet the requirements.
What is a 'smart city'?
At the World Bank's Global Smart City Partnership Program, we held a Virtual Knowledge Exchange Program on Smart Cities for Sustainable Development, jointly organized with the World Bank's Open Learning Campus, to discuss the trend.At the event, we polled more than 260 participants from around the world to find out what they thought a smart city would be, what makes a urban area and its ...
PDF The making of a smart city: policy recommendations
Studies exploring the public private partnership business models should also be more prominent in Horizon 2020 calls, as these will be the backbone for many replication efforts. ... "The making of a smart city: replication and scale-up of innovation in Europe", European Commission. 2 See Annex 1 - policy and finance questionnaire for SCIS ...
What is a Smart City?
A smart city is an urban area where technology and data collection help improve quality of life as well as the sustainability and efficiency of city operations. Smart city technologies used by local governments include information and communication technologies (ICT) and the Internet of Things (IoT). Areas of city operations where ICT, IoT and ...
What is a smart city? Technology and examples
Top 10 smart cities in the United States: New York, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, San Diego, Miami, and Houston. IESE business school. Cities in motion 2020. The top 3 smart cities in Canada (Cities in motion - October 2020) are Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.
An overview of the Smart Cities Mission
The story so far: The Smart Cities Mission (SCM), a flagship programme of the NDA-1 government, has taken a back seat in this year's list of poll promises and achievements. The term 'Smart ...
Centre plans to operationalise high speed corridors ...
MORTH plans to construct over 1,700 km of highways in the first three months post-elections and award over 3,000 km. The ministry had missed its original highway awarding target of nearly 13,000 km by a wide margin last fiscal year, as it couldn't award projects due to delays in the approval of the revised estimates of its flagship Bharatmala programme, the cost of which has doubled since ...
City of Cleveland seeks residents' reactions to parks and recreation
Open house and pop-up sessions hosted by MOCAP and Olin Studios will kick off Tuesday, May 14May 10, 2024 — Cleveland — The Mayor's Office of Capital Projects (MOCAP) is in the second phase of planning the future of parks and recreation in the city of Cleveland. As preliminary recommendations for the long-range plan have been drafted, the City seeks reactions from residents.
Money blog: McDonald's changes iconic Happy Meal box; AI-powered
The rise was driven by £4.91m from his performance share plan (PSP) after he helped lead the company to higher profits in the face of challenging inflation. ... By James Sillars, business news ...
Maria 01 rolls out ambitious pan-Europe startup plan
The Maria 01 hub, in its present form, is home to over 180 startups and 1,500 members. It projects that by 2030, the startups in its domain will have a combined turnover of €15bn, compared with ...
Man suspected of cheating on university entrance exam with smart
TOKYO, May 15 (Xinhua) — Tokyo police plan to refer to prosecutors an 18-year-old man for allegedly using camera-equipped smart glasses to cheat on an entrance exam at Waseda University, local media reported on Wednesday. The Tokyo resident, who was a senior high school student at the time of the alleged offense, is suspected of using the ...
A Plan to Remake the Middle East
A Plan to Remake the Middle East While talks for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas continue, another set of negotiations is happening behind the scenes. 2024-05-08T06:00:10-04:00