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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today I will introduce a research paper by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original paper, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole paper.
Our summary today works with the article titled Smart city policies: A spatial approach from 2014 by Margarita Angelidou, published in the Cities journal. Since we are investigating the future of cities, I though it would be interesting to include smart cities spatial understanding. The article investigates the strategic choices around smart city policy making through examples from all over the world, with some recommendations towards the future.
Angeliou started with defining the smart city: it is a conceptual urban development model based on the utilisation of human, collective and technological capital for the enhancement of urban areas. This definition is followed by the lacking strategic approach which seems to be rather abstract, due to many reasons, like its multidisciplinarity, conflicting stakeholder instersts, and different understandings of the aims with such strategy. Therefore, this article presents the spatial factors which make the smart city policies different, to provide a clear view of the strategic choices which must be considered when mapping out a smart city strategy.
The problems root in the missing understanding in smart cities and their implementations. Additionally, the strategic planning for the development of smart cities is still a largely unknown field, while the terms are mixed up, such as smart and intelligent. This article does not differentiate between these two. Here, there is another working definition for the smart cities: all urban settlements that make a conscious effort to capitalise on ICT landscape in a strategic way seeking to achieve prosperity, effectiveness and competitiveness on multiple socio-economic levels.
Based on the investigation, there are four strategic choices spatially differentiating smart city policies: national versus local, new versus existing, hard versus soft infrastructure oriented, sector versus geographically-based. The following parts examine these with their advantages and disadvantages through the literature and examples, and there are recommendations based on the investigation.
National versus local strategies are differentiated based on whether they concern whole countries or local levels, such as neighbourhoods and municipalities. Most of the applied strategies reside on the local level, which is advantageous because the innovation has a geographical location and knowledge making the ambitions more effective; local characteristics help to differentiate cities in the competitive economic landscape; citizen engagement is easier and the results are more entwined with the community; cities are more flexible to explore new ideas than countries and have more favourable climate for becoming smart; the problems are manageable in size and nature, thus require less effort; cities can learn from each other and pool insights in on how to become smarter.
But local strategies can be disadvantageous because cities are competing against each other on resources and funds, so they are less likely to be able to afford funds for such a development; the already existing policy landscape must accept the smart city strategy; individual projects may not prove to affect the whole city. Furthermore, the sustainability aspect varies widely even on the local scale. New York was mentioned as an example with its established well-articulated digital strategy concerning local resource priorities and needs.
Interestingly, far fewer reserachers advocate for wider smart strategies, meaning on the nation level, talking about smart nations. These strategies are backed by the state, allow for a boarder view and firmer control and proper coordination of resources and provide a strong point of reference. However, they are possible to fail in capitalising effectively the local advantages and answering local needs, and the horizontality falsely assumes similar barriers and opportunities across the whole country. Malta created a national strategy to become one of the top information societies in the world through first class ICT cluster with a new township of SmartCity Malta.
Although most of the western world rarely establishes new cities, the next strategic choice involves the question of new versus existing cities. Western planners advocate for the belief that there is no need for new cities, but the retrofitting, regenerating and upgrading of the existing ones. Developing countries, on the other hand, have many initiatives to develop new cities from scratch with the newest technological possibilities with tremendous investments.
Creating a new city has the advantages of addressing the smart city vision from inception with clarity of purpose; integrating the best practices of city planning and development with edge technology and modern amenities; exploring innovative business models and funding options, selecting location strategically, replicating standard approaches resulting in faster development, economies of scale and higher chance for success. However, there are multiple disadvantages as well, such as problems from budgetary issues, the budget can be higher with one order of magnitude so require huge investments, the sole focus on efficiency can cause deficiencies in societal and sustainability dimensions, and replication of solutions may not result in the same results at different places. Songdo’s International Business District is a new smart city located in South Korea aspiring to be a business hub and encompass sustainable principles.
Of course, brownfield projects have also pros, like the opportunity of employing and engaging with existing innovation and inhabitants to accelerate the process, collaboration through the existing stakeholders making it easier to secure funding, and the investments are usually tide to services eliminating the financial need for huge infrastructure developments. On the other hand, they are complex ecosystems of people, institutions and stakeholders which require huge effort to organise and mobilise, the existing infrastructure can be outdated hindering the realisation of a smart city project, and additional problems can also hinder the establishment of the smart city strategy. Amsterdam Smart City project is a partnership with businesses, authorities, institutions and inhabitants to focus on living, working, mobility, public facilities and open data.
The strategies can be selective of targeting the hard infrastructure system – meaning transport, water, waste, energy – or the soft infrastructure – the people of the city, social and human capital, knowledge, inclusion, participation, social innovation, social equity. With hard infrastructure, technological basis and products are almost seen required to enhance service provision. These can be utilised almost anywhere with slight modifications, however, this approach is seen as fragmented among the researchers and advocates since technology is not enough in and of itself for smartness. There are risks of social disparities enhanced by the technological gap based on knowledge and user abilities, spatial polarization, surveillance and issues with transparency, special problems from the smart city products. Rio de Janeiro established a hard infrastructure approach with IBM to enhance emergency response with data sharing and a command-and-control and real-time centre.
The soft-infrastructure approach is seen as a more complete view on smart cities, including the importance of the social and human capital into the smart city development. Human-centred approaches are indispensable, and technology must be a tool to service the inhabitants. This approach uses the advancements of human capital and social capital and intellectual capital and knowledge creation capabilities and the feel of inhabitants’ agency over the environment. Unfortunately, cyberspace is not purely public and there is no equal access to it, the vast amount of data does not guarantee the betterments and integrity, and participation is not equal with the technological disparities. Barcelona’s smart city mission, concentrating on soft infrastructure, is to enhance citizens’ welfare and quality of life and economic progress.
The reference area is also a significant factor in the smart city strategies, whether they are sector-based or geographically-based. Sector-based strategies, almost the mainstream idea, aim at specific economic sectors of the city with enhancing the intelligence and effectiveness of a specific aspect of the everyday living, such as health or education, without highlighting the geography of each sector. Singapore’s Intelligent Nation 2015 masterplan is a clear example of sector-based approach to become an intelligent island with seven key economic sector. Geographically-based approaches focus on districts and clusteres in one location, like business districts or university campuses, to organise and support effectiveness in that location. Thessaloniki in Greece established a geographically-based smart city strategy within its Intelligent Thessaloniki proposal focusing on important districts of entrepreneurship and innovation.
According to the investigation, it is important to see what is already available and how it can be improved. This may be self-explanatory, but from experience, surprisingly easy to be more ambitious with grandiouse visions rather than capitalising available resources first. New York did this utilising already in place digital assets in its strategy. The problem of limited funds traditionally had limited autonomy and resources of municipalities, therefore some prioritisation is in order to start the journey of becoming smart. Amsterdam chose open data and energy, and Rio chose transport and security as the first steps. Selectivity, synergies and prioritisation are thus three standard core values in planning a smart city.
Political issues and other moral and ethical issues must be also considered. Rio has been accused of failing moral balance to achieve security, unfortunately. To produce morally balanced and socially aware smart city strategies, stakeholder engagement is crucial. New York gained valuable information, while Amsterdam’s project gained public acceptance, and the whole smartness level was elevated in Amsterdam and Barcelone with proper stakeholder engagement. Additionally, to achieve economies of scope, the combination of digital, physical and institutional changes is highly desireable, as it happened in Barcelona’s case. Finally, it can be valuable to approach urban development and smart cities through small-scale integrated projects, being user-friendly and raising awareness and acceptance – but they must be integrated to a broader strategic plan.
Of course, all of these strategic choices are intertwined with each other and a range of decisions must be made which produces radically different smart city approaches. Not to mention, that these spatial strategic choices are connected to a range of other strategic choices which must be tackled in the decision making process.
As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:
- Smart cities and their strategies vary widely depending on many aspects, such as the investigated 4 strategic choices: national versus local, new versus existing, hard versus soft infrastructure oriented, sector versus geographically-based
- The different strategies are not inherently good or bad, just proper for the given situation or not, based on the investigation of existing and available resources and strategic decisions.
- The smart city, and the urban future visions need strategies to be properly established, and though the individual projects are good, their effect is greater when there is a system which they can be integrated in.
Additionally, it would be great to talk about the following questions:
- What is the difference between smartness and intelligence?
- Is there a global smart city definition? Because based on the strategic choices, each smart city should be different, and still, we keep trying to find one global definition for it.
- What do you think, which strategic choice is not considered in your area and how that can be advanced?
What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Do you have any follow up questions? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the website where the transcripts and show notes are available! I hope this was an interesting research for you as well, and thanks for tuning in!
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