Smart Cities Focus on People — Not Technology
While technology is a key aspect of smart cities, they must be people-centered to overcome common challenges
In 2018, the United Nations estimated that 68% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, representing an increase of 2.5 billion people and bringing the total number of urban dwellers to nearly 7 billion. While rapid urbanization offers tremendous opportunities, it also introduces new challenges, from housing scarcity to energy shortages. Cities will need to innovate and evolve to mitigate the environmental, economic, and social pressures associated with exponential urban growth. Making cities “smarter” is one way to overcome urban challenges and ensure that cities remain pleasurable and livable for all.
The term “smart city” entered the mainstream in the early 2000s and is generally defined as a city that integrates technology — from 5G to blockchain — into urban life. However, as the United Nations Development Program stressed in its 2021 Smart Urban Innovations Handbook, technology is only one component of what makes a city smart. Truly smart cities focus on civic engagement, inclusivity, and accessibility as well.
Like all technology, smart city technology must be seen as a single strategy within a greater “sum of initiatives, solutions, and collaborations that address urban needs.” When evaluating urban challenges, governments should not just look to high-tech solutions; they must also consider low-tech innovations, behavior change-based interventions, and nature-based solutions, such as planting trees to improve air quality or expanding bike lanes to reduce traffic congestion. By weighing high-tech solutions against other alternatives, governments will invest in smart city technology only when it’s the most suitable solution, increasing its likelihood for positive impact.
To get started, it’s important to be aware of both the potential drawbacks and benefits of smart city technology, as well as how it can be implemented for maximal benefit.
Challenges and benefits of smart city technology
Smart city technology faces numerous political, technical, and operational challenges, including:
1. Privacy
Dotted with sensors that monitor people, vehicles, and other infrastructure, smart cities may pose privacy risks. Some critics argue that embedding cities with technology will enable “surveillance” by private companies and government entities. As cities consider use cases involving even more sensitive data, such as facial recognition, concerns around privacy are only likely to grow.
2. Cybersecurity
Because smart city technology allows for vast data collection, governments may face more targeted cyberattacks. Breaches not only put sensitive data at risk, but also hinder public support for smart city initiatives.
3. Talent and workforce
While smart city technology generates vast amounts of data, this data is only as useful as the analysis and actions that result from it. Municipal governments often lack the tech and data-science expertise necessary to effectively leverage smart city investments.
4. Technology failures and maintenance
Like the technology we use in our daily lives, such as cell phones and cars, smart city technology will inevitably fail. Effective maintenance is critical to ensuring that the technology meets its full potential.
5. Technology replacement rate
Urban infrastructure such as bridges, roadways, and tunnels are built to last decades, if not centuries. Yet, technology becomes obsolete within years. As Shoshanna Saxe of the University of Toronto wrote in 2019, “New technology in 2015 will be outdated before 2020. If we widely deploy smart tech in cities, we need to be prepared to replace it every few years, with the associated disruption and cost.” The quick replacement rate of technology could make smart city projects impractical and expensive.
Strict data privacy and security measures, effective talent recruitment, and rapid technology maintenance can help mitigate these challenges. At the same time, smart city technology can have meaningful benefits on city management and services, from improving air quality to cutting commute times.
Some benefits of smart city technology include:
1. Environmental sustainability
Tools such as smart water meters, smart grids, and energy-tracking apps can help to significantly reduce energy and water consumption. Sensors can also assist with air and water quality monitoring. In Beijing, air quality sensors allowed the city to reduce deadly airborne pollutants by 20%.
2. Transportation and mobility
Smart mobility applications have the potential to reduce commute times by 15–20% on average. Sensor-enabled predictive maintenance can fix infrastructure problems before they cause delays or breakdowns, while usage data can inform transit routes and schedules. Similarly, smart technologies can mitigate traffic through applications such as intelligent traffic signals or real-time driver navigation alerts.
3. Civic engagement
As city populations grow, it’s increasingly important that local governments are responsive to resident needs. Engaging directly with residents through digital apps and platforms is one way to increase connectedness and encourage civic participation. Around the world, local governments have embraced community engagement platforms such as CitizenLab and Civocracy to gather resident input and make data-driven decisions. McKinsey estimates that digital apps and platforms can nearly triple the share of residents who feel connected to local government.
4. Urban planning
From sensors to digital twins, smart city technologies can facilitate better urban planning. In Singapore, a digital twin of the city visualizes new projects and provides insights on how temperature and sunlight shift throughout the day, allowing urban planners to optimize their designs.
A people-centered approach to smart city development
While formidable, the challenges facing smart city technology should not deter governments from investing in solutions that can provide meaningful advantages to city efficiency, sustainability, and livability. However, realizing the benefits of smart city technology ultimately depends on how the technology is implemented — smart city strategies must be built from the bottom-up with resident input.
A bottom-up and inclusive approach puts residents — rather than technology — at the center of smart city development. People living in the city are encouraged to learn, debate, and share how they want their city to look and feel, and resident opinion is prioritized over technological aspirations. To achieve the transparency and participation espoused by a bottom-up model, governments must engage residents in new ways, in both real and virtual settings.
The Belgian city of Leuven offers a good example. In Leuven, residents are actively engaged in the municipality’s decision-making through “Leuven, Co-Create!” — an open call for people to submit ideas on how to make Leuven a better place to live, work, and play. Other programs have united more than 600 public and private stakeholders to ensure that they take multiple perspectives into account. As Leuven mayor Mohamed Ridouani stated, “Our model of radical cooperation and engaged leadership can be a blueprint for other European cities.”
City dwellers should not just play a role in the conception of a smart city but should also be given knowledge and access to reap its benefits. Along with engaging residents in the creation of smart city projects, it’s important that data gathered through technology is made available to residents. As researcher Frank Kresin writes, “To raise and deserve trust, build systems based on data reciprocity and transparency. People want to know as much of the system as the system knows about them. Be open of what it captures and who has access, and let the people be in control of their data.”
To increase data accessibility and transparency, cities can institute open data platforms. In London, the city has instituted the London Datastore, a free data-sharing portal where anyone can access data related to the capital. Over one thousand data sets provide information on housing, jobs, and transport, among other topics. The data store is accompanied by “Digital Access for All,” an initiative to make sure every Londoner has “access to good connectivity, basic digital skills and the device or support they need to be online by 2025.” London’s holistic approach to increasing data access, as well as giving residents the tools and knowledge to understand that data, can serve as a model for other cities looking to engage their residents throughout the entire lifecycle of their smart city plans.
Conclusion
Through thoughtful, people-centered policy and implementation, cities are more likely to deploy technology that is helpful to the people they serve, ensuring that smart city technology fulfills its potential of improving urban quality of life. Slalom is made up of advisors, strategists, and engineers who believe in taking a human-centered approach to consulting. Learn more about how we can help you leverage smart city technology to make your cities more efficient, livable, and sustainable for your residents.
+++
Slalom is a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Learn more and reach out today.
