A truly ‘smart city’ needs more than technology and innovation
A friendly reminder that technology alone won’t save us from changing times without radical empathy and a central focus on people
This post is slightly adapted from a Jun. 15 column that appeared in Savannah Morning News.
Sensors are not smart. Digital kiosks do not save the world. Efficiency is not democracy.
–Boston Mayor’s Office of Urban Mechanics, Beta Blocks.
We talk a lot about private sector innovation and entrepreneurship, but far less often do we talk about innovation in the context of the more fundamental institution that affects all of us who live in a democratic nation: Our local, state and federal governments.
It’s easy to blame distrust in government on bitter partisan divides and what seems at times unresponsive elected officials. But the erosion of civic trust in our governing institutions is about more than politics.
It’s about the larger machinery of government, and a system of rigid and outdated processes that attempt to apply 20th-century thinking to the governance of a 21st-century society. In turn, we’re often left with top-down policies that fail to reflect the needs of users and public services that are inefficient, slow, and costly.
We have to find a more innovative way for our local government to live up to the ideal of “government for the people, by the people, of the people.”
We must find a better way.
Two weeks ago, myself and two other volunteer members of Open Savannah — in addition to Saja Aures of the city of Savannah and Coco Papy of The Creative Coast — were invited to attend Code for America’s annual summit in Oakland, Calif., to represent the growing citizen-driven movement for public-sector innovation that Open Savannah has spent the last year slowly but steadily fostering and cultivating.
As part of the nationwide Code for America network, Open Savannah is a volunteer organization made up of coastal residents from all walks of life who offer their professional skills and local knowledge to help local government bring about the innovation it needs to work better, faster, and cheaper.
Our mission is to make this possible through a fundamental shift in thinking about the complex system under which municipal bureaucracies operate.
We believe that by applying the principles of modern software development to local policy and municipal service delivery, local governments can take the forefront in moving our nation forward toward a more equitable and prosperous 21st century.
And the best place to start? In our own cities, where we have the direct ability to make a meaningful difference.
Since founding Open Savannah last year, we’ve helped restore public trust in local government, and demonstrated to public servants and elected officials what’s possible by applying iterative, modular and open approaches to local governance.
We’ve taken tactical steps toward bridging the city-citizen divide — from presenting previously inaccessible data on the area’s human service offerings in a mobile-friendly interactive map, to visualizing the municipal budget with an easily digestible interactive interactive mobile web app.
But we must start doing more than what Stephen Goldsmith in The New City O/S dubs “project innovation” to propel our mission into its next stage.
To have a long-term transformative impact, we need to do a better job involving everyone — especially those living in the margins of our community — in an inclusive and deliberative process of reinventing the way our local government operates.
As urban planner Jane Jacobs wrote more than five decades ago in her seminal The Death and Life of Great American Cities, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
Involving everybody requires meeting underrepresented communities where they are — literally — not expecting them to come to our meetings, on our turf, on our schedule.
We must work together to create the city, county, and region we wish to see. Local government isn’t someone else’s job — nor is it something we can outsource to “tech people,” to elected officials, or to shiny new urban innovations.
It’s up to us. All of us.
Professional classes often talk about the promises of new “smart city” technologies. What makes a “smart city” smart, though, is not the technology; it’s the people.
Technology alone won’t save government. But the values of public service and civic duty –combined with the practices of modern technology and collaborative design –upheld by an engaged, empowered and informed local public can.
For our institutions to continue to deliver essential public services in the coming decades, we must show up, speak up, step up, and engage in the slow, unglamorous work of shifting public perception about government from cynicism to responsibility and volunteerism.
We must offer up our hands — not just our voices — and press elected officials to enact forward-thinking public policy that gives tech a seat at the table and helps to build high-quality, user-centered government digital services.
Then, and only then, can we hope to realize the vision of a truly “smart city.”
