How smart cities can make the world better

Smart cities could help us finally find solutions to the most difficult aspects of urbanization: crime, homelessness, elder care, child care, transportation, unemployment, disease, CO2 and resilience.

More and more urban centers around the world are investing in digitally sophisticated infrastructure with the vision of becoming “smart cities.” For many decision makers, these investments represent important steps in making their cities more attractive places for people to live, work and play.

But, being a smart city goes beyond embedding new technologies for the sake of progress. While it’s fun to think about cool futuristic possibilities, smart city technology is more important than that. In fact, without overstating it, smart cities could save the world. With a combination of data driven decision-making tools, sensors and AI, smart city strategies could make cities dramatically better for people.

With over half of the world’s 7 billion people living in urban areas today, the trajectory of cities will determine the trend lines of human experience across the globe. Smart cities could help us finally find solutions to the most difficult aspects of urbanization: crime, homelessness, elder care, child care, transportation, unemployment, disease, CO2 and resilience. If our cities become better in these areas, our world will be better.

Finding smart solutions to big problems

Measuring cities based on levels of educational attainment, demographic diversity, cultural contributions, innovation and economic growth shows us that cities power their respective societies. Cities are the world’s primary economic and cultural engines, and the decisions that city leaders make have major consequences around the world. Cities today produce 80 percent of global GDP, but they come with downsides as a consequence of their economic activity and density. An example: Cities unfortunately generate 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The hope is that data-driven smart cities can alter the paradigm of winners and losers so prevalent in the current urban model. Prosperity would be uncoupled from the destruction of our environment, human suffering and extreme differences between the haves and have nots.

These are issues that we’ve considered in the World Economic Forum’s Global Future’s Council on Cities and Urbanization. With our recently published whitepaper on Data Driven Cities, we have explored how this change is possible in a series of 20 case studies. The studies are divided into five categories—people, economy, governance, infrastructure and the environment—and they explore the potential for using data to move the dial on a wide range of urban issues.

Issues related to mobility and traffic congestion are high on the priority list of problems that smart city technology can solve. At $790 billion each year, Los Angeles has the third largest GDP of any city in the world. One downside of this amazing economic growth and success has been a decrease in mobility around the metro area, and Los Angeles is now the world’s most traffic-congested city.

Autonomous vehicles promise to alleviate traffic congestion in the future, and newly emerging smart city technologies are already starting to address these issues today.

In response to its ongoing problems with traffic congestion and infrastructure disrepair, Detroit made a series of strategic investments in smart city technology, including what is being referred to as the “World’s Smartest Intersection.” This system of sensors, cameras, connected traffic signals and remote monitoring technologies allow the city’s infrastructure to respond to traffic conditions in real time, and is geared toward helping motorists, pedestrians and cyclists move through the city safely and efficiently. 

Creating connected communities and enhancing human experience

The focus on people was raised at a recent “5G and Smart Cities” event put together by Axios, where I joined Axios co-founder and executive editor Mike Allen, Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada, Congressman Darrell Issa of California and Congresswoman Yvette Clarke of New York.

The hope is that data-driven smart cities can alter the paradigm of winners and losers so prevalent in the current urban model. Prosperity would be uncoupled from the destruction of our environment, human suffering and extreme differences between the haves and have nots.

Axios managing editor Kim Hart expanded the conversation by addressing how technology is creating a world that is more intimate and personal.

Kim noted that at the beginning of the decade trends were pointing to technology creating a society with a very disaggregated and virtualized sense of community. Now we’re seeing that the basic human need to connect and come together is supplanting that vision in some very inspiring ways. Smart cities will be places that bring people together.

A focus on inclusivity 

For these new connections to happen, we need to make sure that our cities are also inclusive places for people to live, work and play. This was the dominant theme of my panel “Reimaging Urban Planning” during Smart Cities New York 2018 this past May.

I was joined by Brooklyn Navy Yard President, David Ehrenberg, Executive Vice President of Metro Emerging Markets & Public Affairs at RXR Realty, Seth Pinsky, Sidewalk Labs Head of Engineering, Craig Nevill-Manning and Mott MacDonald Vice President, Leon Higgins.

This conversation mirrored the Axios smart cities townhall in the breadth of issues covered and the focus each speaker placed on how smart cities can solve problems for people with a diverse range of needs.

David Ehrenberg focused his remarks on how smart cities can make the innovative potential and economic power of cities widely accessible to everyone.

Craig Nevill-Manning noted that one of the things that excited Sidewalk Labs about working in Toronto is the city’s status as the most diverse city in North America.

Finally, Seth Pinsky talked about the need to bring responsible capital investment to neighborhoods that are underserved and in need of greater opportunities.

In other words, we need to design the algorithm before we start collecting the data. Business leaders are saying that smart cities need to focus on and prioritize outcomes that have far reaching, and broadly positive effects to be considered smart.

Toward a people-friendly future

Smart cities have the potential to solve major problems as well as drive innovation, enabling people to come together and create thriving business ecosystems.

This goes beyond next generation technology to the realization that people in collaboration with other people drive the innovation that propels the economic growth of cities. Ten years ago, it was popular to claim that virtual work and new digital technologies would mean people would stop coming in to the office, preferring to work from home. But now, the trend has reversed as we witness the rise of co-working and even blue-chip tech firms are bringing people back to the office. It’s clear that people are more innovative and productive when they work around other people.

At the city level town squares and mixed-use development provide the kind of urban fabric people thrive in, and they should be part of every smart city strategy. Investments should be centered on solving human problems, this means designing spaces at every scale that provide ways for people to engage with others in their community.

At the end of the day, it’s all about making our neighborhoods, workplaces, communities and the world around us better, more positive places to be.

That’s what makes a smart city truly smart.