The Garden Project 2017
Driven by the profit motive of global high-technology companies, in collusion with the trend towards city governance being wedded to a competitive form of ‘urban entrepreneurialism’, has left little room for ordinary people to participate in the smart city. — Robert G. Hollands
This quote sums up my concerns with the currently dominant perspective of what smart cities are. The vision for smart cities includes a view where everyday life becomes better for its citizens, where our quality of life improves. Where profit-motive is the major and almost sole driving force behind a city becoming smart, then I have concerns that lives are destined for the kind of future envisioned by Keiichi Matsuda’s Hyper-Reality.
Australian Government and Smart Cities
Brisbane has jumped onto the smart city bullet train, responding to the Australian Government’s call for submissions for the development of a national Smart Cities plan. The Australian Government has expressed it’s motivations and desired outcomes as:
The Smart Cities Plan will position our cities to succeed in the 21st Century economy. It is a plan for supporting productive, accessible, liveable cities that attract talent, encourage innovation and create jobs and growth.
It represents a new framework for cities policy at the federal level — and it is a framework that will guide action across various portfolios, to deliver better outcomes for our cities, the people who live in them and all Australians.
The Smart Cities Plan sets out the Australian Government’s vision for our cities — metropolitan and regional — and its commitment to smart investment, smart policy and smart technology.
Whilst “accessible, liveable cities” gives a hint of a focus on people’s quality of life, economics is the main driver for this policy. It’s clearly important, but the lack of a clearly stated driver that creates some level of priority for citizens may shape the nature of the cities that emerge as a result of this policy.
Smart, Connected Brisbane
Brisbane has developed it’s own strategy: “Smart, Connected Brisbane” that includes a strategy around developing Brisbane as a smart city. Unsurprisingly, it follows suit creating a focus on economics. The Lord Mayor’s message introducing the strategy does acknowledge that a smart city can provide benefit to citizens:
As Lord Mayor, I’m committed to maintaining this quality of life for residents while ensuring our city has the services and infrastructure to meet the needs of future generations.
Brisbane 2022 New World City Action Plan
The way Brisbane seeks to deliver this to it’s citizens is through economic growth and development.
The Brisbane 2022 New World City Action Plan outlines priorities to drive the city’s economic growth to better align the city in a global marketplace. Embracing a smart city approach will support the delivery of the Brisbane 2022 New World City Action Plan as well as the strategic objectives of Council’s Brisbane Vision 2031.
The New World City Action Plan, was created by the the Lord Mayor’s Economic Development Steering Committee and established 7 economic priorities and actions.
Digital Brisbane 2.0
An element of the Smart, Connected Brisbane strategy it’s integration with the Digital Brisbane 2.0 strategy.
[At this point, as I have been navigating through many websites, not just on the brisbane.qld.gov.au domain, I am starting to wonder about how all of these plans and strategies are really going to come together. I can’t help thinking that every department in Brisbane’s Council has jumped into the Digital/Smart City world but each is on a slightly different route in that world.]
But here we start to see a greater focus on citizens and their empowerment in the Smart Brisbane City.
It’s now not just about enabling Brisbane businesses to claim their piece of the global, digital economy. Our digital transformation strategy is now about empowering Brisbane residents and businesses to thrive in this globally-connected and digitally-enabled economy
One aspect if the Digital Brisbane 2.0 strategy that I found interesting was:
Digital paradigms and technology now underpin almost every element of our lives. An evolved digital transformation agenda needs to lift above capability and education, to empowerment and enablement across all dimensions of business and life. Such an agenda also needs to recognise the role of digital in our lives — and that is one of an enabler, not an end unto itself. [emphasis added]
I think that this empowerment and enablement is critical for a smart city that at least creates some level of priority for its citizens as citizens. I also think that most difficult part is enablement. Many smart cities have open data policies and some are allowing citizens to have access to the actual technology and the systems that support them. An example is Amsterdam Smart City. But is that really enabling people? Or is it only enabling some people — those who have the skills to work in that kind of technology environment.
Making Brisbane a Smart City
So how is Brisbane doing this?
Brisbane has defined 5 “key aspirations powering the Digital Brisbane 2.0 strategy”: easy to work, easy to grow, easy to learn, easy to contribute and easy to live.
Within the Easy to Learn aspiration, the strategy includes encouraging young people’s interest in coding as well as increasing the awareness and participation in Brisbane’s digital literacy programs — where Brisbane aims to facilitate the delivery of initiatives to improve the literacy of residents of all ages. It also plans to work with community groups to examine the barriers that work to prevent people becoming involved.
The Easy to Contribute aspiration is stated to be focused on solving civic challenges. Brisbane Innovate, created as part of this aspiration, states a desire for open innovation but with a particular focus on “the best solutions to be co-created in agile, fast-to-market approaches”.
For citizens as citizens, Brisbane has created Team Brisbane (which is an element of Connected Brisbane: a circular reference back to the Smart, Connected Brisbane strategy).
Team Brisbane articulates Brisbane’s civic pride. The Team Brisbane digital platform will take this one step further, enabling residents and community groups to easily define local problems, identify the resources, people and council input to resolve them, then harness the efforts of those who wish to assist. The Team Brisbane platform could be used by residents to improve a local park, share knowledge and resources across community groups or even work towards solving some of the city’s biggest challenges.
But that still leaves the question “how are citizens being enabled” not completely answered. A quick browse through the Digital Brisbane website details their programs as Coderdojo (aimed at young people learning to code), a small business program and a global entrepreneurs program.
The about us page tells us that Brisbane “Australia’s new world city” is leading the way. It also states that it is part of Brisbane’s economic development board “Brisbane Marketing” and is working to do a number of things all focused on economic development.
So, where does this leave “empowering and enabling” citizens? It seems to have been forgotten.
It further follows that a smart, connected city must include everyone … not just those who can afford the latest gadget (let alone know how to use the latest gadgets). For me, this is one of the most exciting promises of a truly smart, connected city — digital infrastructure has the potential to be the great equaliser. Everyone can access the information, discourse and input channels that inform the design and creation of their city. — Cat Matson, Chief Digital Officer, City of Brisbane, March 28, 2016
Enabling Citizens in Smart Cities
The corporate focused smart city certainly has the potential to deliver significant benefit to the citizens of that city. But a smart city shouldn’t ignore or reduce the priority it assigns to some of its citizens.
We want to explore how smart cities should be designed to truly empower and enable people to gain the benefit from their city being smart. How can we make both the technology and the data/services delivered by that technology truly accessible to people so they can appropriate and use it as they wish? Can we design the smart city eco-system so that anyone can access it how they wish?
This is our summer project.
