Plant your digital foundation!

Avoiding the “Digital Rust Belt”

A few weeks ago at Smart Cities Connect, I was introduced to the concept of a “Digital Rust Belt”.

“The generation that is coming of age want to live in a place that fits their digital and connected lifestyle. Where the talent goes, the jobs go,” said Bob Bennett, CIO of Kansas City, Missouri.

At the event, Mayors and city leaders continuously spoke of their smart city plans as a way to remain competitive and not be left behind by digital transformation.

What is the Digital Rust Belt? The Rust Belt refers to the American cities in the Midwest and Northeast that suffered “deindustrialization” as the economy shifted from manufacturing-driven to a service and information focus. Those economic hubs lost jobs, people and capital as they shifted to more attractive markets. Some of the macroeconomic trends were unavoidable, but certain areas weathered the change better than others as their ecosystems and government were willing to change.

As someone who grew up near Detroit, a city significantly affected during the last economic transformation, the Digital Rust Belt concept immediately resonated with me. Smart city and digital government programs must deliver more than better citizen services and more effective government. As the full force of the fourth Industrial Revolution takes hold, they need to be the foundation of the community’s digital ecosystem.

Using that transformation as a lesson, cities today are realizing three things:

1. A digital, connected and IoT economy is here

2. Cities need to not only embrace change but help drive it

3. A city’s brand is everything! It is foundational

From leveraging data for better decision-making, embracing digital citizen engagement and investing in broadband as enabling infrastructure — many cities have smart city programs. These steps are vital for modern cities, yet are often overlooked by residents and businesses that don’t interact with the projects on a day-to-day basis.

But these people are online and they are the core stakeholders that live and love your city every day. It is becoming increasingly apparent that to engage as many people as possible and acquire new investment, creating a digital community and ecosystem is critical.

Whether you live in the Big Apple, The City of Lights, or the City of Big Shoulders, your city already has an identity; it has civic pride; it has civic engagement.

Residents desire and expect to engage and promote that identity online, driving shared community interests as we do in the offline world. This results in engagement, pride, and economic development. A digital community promotes your brand, drives tourism, and makes people want to live and play there.

Our story began as marketplace.nyc, with the desire to align the city’s brand as a government tool to engage start-ups. We were proud to expand our horizons to a wider community in our move to marketplace.city — but our commitment to our roots in NYC were important in that journey.

Today, more than 70,000 community groups, retail shops, small business, and individuals use .nyc as a way of being part of New York City’s digital community. As Mayor De Blasio said, “.nyc places our city on the digital map by allowing New Yorkers to own a small piece.”

Other leading global cities have similar experiences. dotBerlin Managing Director Dirk Krischenowski says having a .berlin creates new identity by allowing “everything that is [Berlin} to have a local identity, and all Berliners to have their name.berlin”.

The tangible benefits of a digital city extend beyond civic pride. .sydney was created to “provide the local business community with a long-term digital asset that will create a platform for innovation and ensure the continued development of the digital economy across the state”.

These cities, determined to avoid the Digital Rust Belt, are using TLDs in their digital foundation as the economy becomes increasingly dominated by those people and firms that demand it.

Brand. Identity. Engagement. Cities all have them and must always be interested in driving more. And if they don’t? Well, it’s likely they’ll get left behind.

Want to learn more about digital cities? Join us to hear our partners from Las Vegas and New York tell their digital brand stories at our Innovation Spotlight webinar on May 23rd at 12pm EST with city leaders and global experts. Register today.