Can Smart City Challenge Partnerships Impact Economic Inclusion?
Part I: What makes Columbus, Ohio a role model?
At the end of 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) launched a Smart City Challenge, requesting mid-sized cities across the nation to share ideas of how to create an “integrated, first-of-its-kind smart transportation system that would use data, applications, and technology to help people and goods move faster, cheaper, and more efficiently.”
In just the span of a year, the department leveraged ~$350M in public-private funds for smart mobility technology advancements. During this challenge $40M from the DOT and $10 million from Vulcan, Inc., a Paul G. Allen Company was awarded to Columbus, OH with an additional $65M in grants awarded to “community-driven advanced technology transportation projects to cities and four additional challenge finalists of 78 applicants from across the country.
Why Columbus above more notable tech-towns like Austin, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh you may ask?
According to the USDOT Smart City Challenge report, “Columbus put forward an impressive, holistic vision for how technology can help all residents move better and access opportunity.” Their implementation vision is illustrated below.
“Transportation is not just about roads, transit and ride sharing. It’s about how people access opportunity. And how they live.”
— Mayor Andrew J. Ginther
Columbus Mayer, Andrew J. Ginther summed up why Columbus was the winner. It’s more than just the novelty of connected technologies. All cities should start with evaluating access to opportunity. While there’s not a lot of data to support Columbus as a benchmark, cities should at a minimum be taking note at how they’ve spun off Smart Columbus from the Department of Public Service, paired up with the Columbus Partnership, and what is generated from the Idea Foundry in Franklinton. Leading indicators of their success is the focus on sustainability beyond the four-year grant commitment. They’ve already secured $500M from other commitments and partnerships.
This challenge is one of many of late led by not only the government, but also corporate brands like Audi and Ford. If done well, I believe these initiatives could break the mold on the reality that commercialization and innovation can have negative effects on society due to the velocity of decision making while breaking existing constraints.
Part II: What are the challenges to smart city implementation?
So, as these programs become more popular, what are the public risks involved and how do we ensure a continuity of collaboration with high turnovers and competing political agendas in both government and corporate leadership?
In the TED Talk, How a start-up in the White House is changing business as usual, Haley Van Dyke poignantly articulated the fears many have with technology adoption,
“This growing dichotomy between the beneficiaries of the tech revolution and those it’s left behind is one of the greatest challenges of our time.”
Smart city technologies can break down social and physical barriers and enable marginalized citizens to participate more freely. When we look at the problems worth solving (i.e. those that can be monetized) and those that can improve lives, we need to address the systemic challenges associated with districts that remain inaccessible, resource deserts, disproportionately less health and lifecare, and silenced overall.
So, what are some of the things we can do to ensure more equitable beneficiaries emerge during this smart evolution in the future of cities? In a POTUS report, Technology and the Future of Cities, the authors highlight:
“Technologies can help districts to be more equitable and inclusive as long as those goals are built in from the beginning and equity metrics are used as part of the measurement of success.”
Fundamentally, we must develop measurement processes that reinforce the partnerships behaviors and capacities to enhance vitality and adaptability.
Part III: What can existing doctrine teach us?
In a 1995 Harvard Business Review article on Leading Change: Why transformation efforts fail, Kotter provides some wisdom with how we might grapple with the vitality and cognitive complexities that are these future of cities public-private partnerships:
1) Establish a sense of Urgency
2) Form a powerful guiding Coalition
3) Create a Vision and strategies for change
4) Communicate vision and lead by example
5) Empower others to act to fulfill vision
6) Plan for and create Visible, Short-term Wins
7) Leverage Progress for more change
8) Institutionalize new approaches
When we consider adaptation, especially with the rapid pace of technological discovery and introduction to the masses, these elements would be wise to consider:
1) Establish values and priorities
2) Recognize and Maintain that the situation has changed
3) Leverage Creativity to generate options (and allow enough time)
4) Analyze Risk (interpret probable outcomes)
Not all measurements are created equal. Measurements must be based on priorities and serve as a valid proxy for the objective/outcome. In the June 1999 edition of the Journal for Strategic Performance Measurement, Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers produced these five great insights in What Do We Measure and Why? Questions About The Uses of Measurement:
1) Who gets to create the measures?
2) How will we measure our measures?
3) Are we designing measures that are permeable rather than rigid?
4) Will these measures create information that increases our capacity to develop, to grow into the purpose of the organization (or partnership)?
5) What measures will inform us about critical capacities: commitment, learning, teamwork, quality, and innovation?
Part IV: Where do we go from here?
No doubt, economic inclusion can be a byproduct of all these emerging technology deployments and smart city initiatives. It requires a shared vision, inclusive collaboration, and leadership. Here are some parting thoughts I’ll flesh out later in blog posts to come. If you prefer one over the other, please comment and I’ll address accordingly.
1) We must create opportunity networks from participant networks associated with these challenges.
2) We should take advantage of the weaving of exclusivity and reputation-based “institution” branding of the challenges to generate reverence-enriching motivation that cross-pollinates and develops true community of practice “influencers”.
3) We need to take into consideration the economic fault line patterns attributed to the long-term loss of economic opportunity in our communities.
4) We have to ask ourselves have citizens advanced from the time of Michael J. Weiss’ 1988 book, The Clustering of America:
“Throughout the nation, Americans live in distinctive community types, refusing to blend into the mythical melting pot.”
5) Designer-activists Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller, founders of Project H Design have made amazing gains in the poorest county of North Carolina with these principles I whole heartedly believe should be the civic “design-hack” model:
a) Design through Action
b) Design With, not for
c) Design Systems, not stuff
d) Document, Share, and Measure
e) Start Locally, and scale globally
f) Build
