Design Thinking In Smart Cities

Problems with executing “smartness” in urban environments

A diagrammatic description of design thinking [1]

Exploring the design

In my other musing on product design, I had consolidated my thoughts on design thinking as an engineer. Design thinking is a process of problem solving by explicitly avoiding ‘bad solutions’ (read technocratic solutions in smart city context). I could not help but notice the similarities between design thinking and exploring ‘wicked problems’ [2] in smart cities. Design thinking fosters involvement of the designers (read stakeholders) by emphasizing the following:

1. User empathy
2. Collaboration
3. Iteration

The most important aspect is that this is a human-centered approach that intentionally avoids flashy ‘complicated’ design solutions in favor of solutions that actually address the need of the end-user.

Urban governance and execution

Urban governance is a wicked problem that has citizens as the end-user. Though it is largely recognized that the goal is to serve the citizens, most of the well-known executions are actually just case-studies in ‘bad solutions’. Why is that? One of the major reasons is ‘the lack of empathy’ from the governance. Though it is tempting to point to it as the sole reason, it would serve us well to recognize the wickedness of the problem. The hard part is to ask the right questions. This has been accurately explained by Green- “Cities don’t need fancy new technology — they need to ask the right questions, understand the issues that residents face, and think creatively about how to address those problems. Sometimes technology can aid these efforts, but technology cannot provide solutions on its own” [3].

Improving the execution

Though design thinking is a well-known process, it is not usually executed effectively in design environments. This is similar to what is happening in the context of smart cities- there is a widespread recognition that technocratic solutions are not the panacea for urban problems, but the executions seldom take this into account effectively.

1. Governance with empathy: Inclusiveness is not a buzzword, it happens when you take into account systemic issues and understand the needs of the citizens. For example, digital inclusiveness is an important component of technological progress that is often neglected. The step taken by the city of Austin in this direction [4] is indeed commendable. As we can see, it comes within the purview of local government to make this happen. This is the reason for engaging citizens in a meaningful way- because then you start asking the right questions.
2. Importance of collaboration: Kayanan et al, describe in detail the impact of diversity of intelligences in influencing policy and material environment in the city of Dublin, Ireland [5]. This spirit of collaboration is true even in product design where the importance of diversity of expertise cannot be understated in arriving at innovative solutions.
3. Not commodifying the city: The community wireless network project at Philadelphia faced a lot of backlash from entrenched corporations [6]. Market forces do not always serve citizens, especially when it affects their bottom-line. Hence the government should work towards extricating the deleterious effects by not equating citizens as consumers thereby making ‘city’ a commodity.
4. The allure of marketing ‘smart solutions’: Kayanan et al dwell into the importance of public engagement in governance of cities by comparing the smart city projects in Dublin [5]. Smart Docklands is a top-down approach of implementing a ‘smart city’ approach with minimal citizen engagement. This project grabbed more attention than the A Playful City and Mapping Green Dublin which were in fact more impactful. Hence it can be seen that the allure of marketing as a ‘smart city’ (flashy technical solutions) weighs heavily on the government when implementing projects.
5. Importance of experimentation: It takes a lot of iterations to get any design right. In Fishing for Apps, Townsend describes the attempt made by the Washington DC governance to make sense of the vast government database [6]. There were valid criticisms of the execution though the intention behind the project was altruistic. In the following iterations many helpful changes were indeed made. Experiments like this should be encouraged but should also incorporate citizen-centric focus to enable the projects to end with tangible outcomes that benefit the community long term.
6. Long term focus on the end-user i.e. the citizen: The idea of public engagement is the basic metric that should clarify a lot of governance choices. As has been argued both by Townsend and Kanayan et al, when public engagement is the focus, the long term validity of smart city projects could be successful.

[1] “Design-Thinking-for-AI.png (750×361).” https://23o0161033pm1289qo1hzrwi-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Design-Thinking-for-AI.png
[2] H. W. J. Rittel and M. M. Webber, “Dilemmas in a general theory of planning,” Policy Sci., vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 155–169, Jun. 1973, doi: 10.1007/BF01405730.
[3] “The Innovative City: The Relationship between Technical and Nontechnical Change in City Government,” in The Smart Enough City, The MIT Press, 2019.
[4] “City of Austin 2014 — digital inclusion strategy.pdf.” .
[5] “Kayanan, Moore-Cherry and Clavin DRAFT — narratives, inequalities and civic participation.pdf.” .
[6] A. M. Townsend, “Reinventing City Hall,” in Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, W. W. Norton & Company, 2013, pp. 194–225.