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Are you interested in smart city as a platform for technological and social innovation?

Our summary today works with the book chapter titled Smart cities as a platform for technological and social innovation in productivitiy, sustainability, and livability: A conceptual framework from 2021 by Hyung Min Kim, Soheil Sabri, and Anthony Kent, from the book titled Smart Cities for technological and social innovation, published by Elsevier. Anthony Kent will be the next interviewee on the podcast so this is a great opportunity to understand his ideas a bit better in advance. Plus, since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see smart cities as innovation platforms. This chapter presents the evolution of cities from ordinary to smart and the potential social and technological innovations.

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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. Stay tuned until because I will give you the 3 most important things and some questions which would be interesting to discuss.

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Among the broad approaches to define smart cities, the authors concentrated on technology, and in particular ICT, as a core element in current smart city practices. Technological innovations worldwide prove to enhance the implementation of social and inclusive urban policies. This chapter creates a framework with the idea of smart cities as not only the outcome of the technological and social innovation but also a platform to facilitate such innovations. These innovations aim to enhance productivity, sustainability and liveability. The change to current literature is that smart cities need to be a dynamic platform to lead to innovation in the interlinked social and technological areas.

The authors established three interrelated aspects:

1. Technological input is a core driver of smart cities, digital infrastructure, ICT and data-driven urban solutions are key elements
2. Smart cities emphasize ubiquitousness or services everywhere due to the ubiquitousness of ICT
3. Smart cities cover a wide array of urban functions including urban infrastructure systems and human, environmental and corporate benefits.

How are smart cities different from unsmart cities? Let’s start with cities. Cities are the manifestations of human settlements with a wide range of social and economic activities. Cities are important because people in cities are important. Innovation and technology are made possible by people who live in societal structures – meaning that cities are sociotechnical systems. They have hard infrastructure like technology, and soft infrastructure like the society residing in them.

Therefore, smart cities are the outcomes of these interlocked technological and social innovations produced by people with creative audacity, and in turn, smart cities spur new technological and social innovations. Smart city is not an end status but a dynamic platform to guide, support and expedite new urban changes via innovations. When the smart city is conceptualised in this manner, any human settlement can be smart. From the broad scope of smart city perspectives, any city can be smart and any effort for better city functions can be a smart city initiative.

The purpose of such initiatives are usually productivity, liveability and sustainability. In knowledge-based economies, ICT infrastructure has become the most prominent to collect, process and produce data for productivity enhancements, among others, regardless of the levels in institutions, businesses or governments. When cities attract skilled knowledge workers, they can bring new ideas, innovation and prosperity, positively affecting productivity. Liveability, on the other hand, is in the interest of all key actors, and technological innovation can help with that. Although liveability is a broad concept, safety, quality of built environments, walkability, convenience of public facilities, access to transport and natural environments are key elements. Sustainability can be also enhanced by technological innovations through managing ecosystems benefiting both humans and nature.

So what is the different between smart city status and smart city initiatives? Smart cities refer to the well-functioning status of cities, assisted and spurred primarily by technological innovation and inevitably by social innovation. Smart cities are both achieving high levels of productivity, liveability and sustainability, and facilitating new innovation as a platform. Smart cities have not only innovative technologies but also the ability to innovate. The innovation makes the city smarter. Smart city initiatives refer to all kinds of efforts to enhance the function of cities, including governmental, corporate, individual and institutional approaches. While initiatives aim to enhance the function of the city in a smart way, the smart city cannot be an end status because there is always room for further innovation. Therefore, smart city should be a city as a platform for innovation.

Technological innovation includes construction technology, high-rise buildings with elevators, but also IoT, data management, analytics platforms, AI and machine learning, digital twins and the personalisation of ICT. Technology-oriented smart city initiatives acknowledge the presence of unmet demand, identify unused resources and attempt to seek answers from technology in every aspect. However, the fundamental question must be answered: how strong is our trust in technology in dealing with the complexity of urban challenges. The key to smart cities is to create an urban system where new technological inventions plug and play into to the city effortlessly. The system is likely to be strengthened by social systems.

Social innovation concerns to adaptation of norms, values, and behaviour to achieve some desired state or to improve upon a less desired condition. It requires cooperation, inclusiveness and trust and it is a collective endeavour. Social innovation aims to generate social benefits rather than individual benefits, bringing new values for society. Social innovation is important for smart cities too, in collaboration and as a consequence of technological advancements. There are three interrelated dimensions of social innovation in relation to smart cities:

1. Technology provides an increasing array of and subscribed to social platforms for interactions, so social innovation can be about socialising.
2. Positive externalities work with people getting together, virtually or face-to-face, leading to agglomeration benefits, like labour markets or the exchange of information.
3. There is an acknowledgment of the implications of inherently unequal cities for the application of smart technology, conflicting with social key values, like well-being and control over one’s environment and life.

The smart city is also an outcome of historical paradigm changes in cities. The key drivers include national and local policies, business opportunities and market demand, globalisation, and political push. The leadership and key actors also influence the smart city outcomes, like central and local governments, ICT firms, urban professionals, residents and end users.

Smart cities are the spatial outcome of technological and social innovation and in turn, they are platforms to facilitate innovations. Cities are, by definition, a centre for human settlements and economic activities. The key drivers are the policies, businesses, markets, globalisation and political push with the key actors being governments, ICT firms, urban professionals, and inhabitants and end users, who have different approaches, interests, contributions, and demands. As such, it is crucial to explore smart cities in multiple geographical, socio-cultural, economic, and political contexts.

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What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Do you have any follow up question? Let me know on Twitter at WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the transcripts and show notes are available! Additionally, I will highly appreciate if you consider subscribing to the podcast or on the website. I hope this was an interesting paper for you as well, and thanks for tuning in!

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Finally, as the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Cities are the manifestations of human settlements with a wide range of social and economic activities and they are important because people in cities are important.
2. Smart cities are the spatial outcome of technological and social innovation and in turn, they are platforms to facilitate innovations.
3. Smart city is not an end status but a dynamic platform to guide, support and expedite new urban changes via innovations and when the smart city is conceptualised in this manner, any human settlement can be smart.

Additionally, it would be great to talk about the following questions:

1. What does the city mean to you?
2. How smart is your city?
3. What are your demands for your city?
4. How could your city become smarter and what is your role in establishing it?

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