How You Can Shape The Future of Cities
In February, Communitech's Future of Cities collaborative set out to explore the challenges cities are facing today. To this end, we hosted 10 interactive sessions, through which we convened 70 leading experts from 44 organizations, including 20 tech startups, 6 municipalities, 6 enterprise companies, and 4 universities. During these sessions, the collaborative explored complex urban challenges. What did we learn? Well, quite a lot about challenges relating to infrastructure and mobility, social challenges, and barriers to innovation. This article summarizes what we learned. If you'd rather watch than read, the below is also watchable in this video.
Who was there?
The spirit of the Future of Cities collaborative is in the multiple perspectives we bring to the table. We are building a thriving community with the purpose of exploring, defining, and solving the most complex challenges facing cities today, but what does that mean? Let’s start with the types of organizations that participated in our last round of sessions:
What were the key themes?
Here's the super-duper high level version. Read on for more detail:
Infrastructure & Mobility:
Barriers to Innovation:
Social Challenges:
This seems really relevant; how do I get involved?
If you would like to get involved, DM me and we can discuss alignment in more detail.
I need more details on the themes you covered
Ok! Here's a look at what exactly the group discussed in the context of each of these themes and sub-themes. For each theme and sub-theme, the group has devised, and voted upon, problem statements that articulate the challenge at hand. The below summarizes key problem statements, and then gives the top-voted problem statement for each theme.
Infrastructure & Mobility 1: Vehicle Dominance
Congestion & carbon emissions:
Absence of alternative/active transit:
Infrastructure & Mobility 2: Accessibility
Inclusion:
Infrastructure & Mobility 3: Digital Infrastructure & Strategic Asset Management
Infrastructure Maintenance & Asset Management:
Environment:
Network infrastructure:
Key problem statements focus on the opportunity cost e.g. inability to mitigate urban challenges, identify new services or solutions, or fully leverage infrastructure assets that accompanies a lack of IoT infrastructure.
Top-voted problem statement: “Cities can’t connect/have no data analytics because of lack of IoT network infrastructure leading to the inability to use newer services and tech or analyze results.”
Barriers to Innovation 1: Visibility of Problems & Opportunities
Not enough/poor use of data:
Key problem statements focus on the inability to develop models that are representative of the real world, either through the lack of data or the lack of capacity, ability to access, or the relevant systems to effectively utilize data.
Top-voted problem statement: “Cities don’t have enough granular data because it’s expensive to deploy/maintain leading to models that are not representative enough to reflect the real world.”
Environment:
Key problem statements continued the focus on data, with a focus on low visibility of GHG emissions or waste management.
Top-voted problem statement: “Cities don’t have the data to understand household waste composition leading to poor decision making.”
Transportation safety:
Key problem statements focus on lack of sufficient data to reduce congestion and risk.
Top-voted problem statement: “Traffic engineers are unable to optimize traffic control measures because it’s unclear what situations pose the highest risk leading to more collisions than there need to be.”
Legacy systems:
Key problem statements focus on fragmented, legacy or inadequate systems that prohibit collaboration between departments or adoption of new solutions.
Top-voted problem statement: “Cities have limited opportunity to adopt new/novel technologies/solutions because of poor digital infrastructure i.e. legacy systems, platform limitations or lack of data integrity leading to limited opportunities to advance options for citizens and/or increase citizen services.”
领英推荐
Barriers to Innovation 2: Stakeholder Engagement, Collaboration & Trust
Engagement & collaboration:
Key problem statements focus on the challenges cities have in working with external stakeholders, which can lead to misaligned priorities, challenges with non-integrated systems, complications with regulations.
Top-voted problem statement: “Government & citizens have challenges with specialized independent regulatory agencies because of independent structural accountability & competing priorities leading to a lack of interoperability of standards and governance frameworks.”
Citizen trust & agency:
Key problem statements focus on the lack of citizen, agency when it comes to data, and how this erodes trust. Citizens do not know what data is being collected, cannot provide consent, and are confused about data governance.
Top-voted problem statement: “Citizens cannot provide informed consent because they do not have a robust understanding of how their data is being used for specific applications, leading to a loss of agency and a lack of active participation”.
Barriers to Innovation 3: Funding, Bureaucracy & Policy
Budget, funding tools & resources:
Key problem statements focus on how the lack of resources, combined with a lack of funding tools, slows/stops decision making and innovation, and prevents the adoption of new technologies, such as AI.
Top-voted problem statement: “Cities have limited budgets that are impacted by a variety of factors leading to slow and compromised decisions and planning.”
Prioritization:
Key problem statements focus on the challenges of prioritizing existing infrastructure maintenance vs. investing in new infrastructure e.g. livable infrastructure, active transit, new tech e.g. A.I., or supporting climate initiatives.
Top-voted problem statement: “Cities have legacy infrastructure issues e.g. maintenance of existing infrastructure because the incentive structure is biased toward the status quo leading to lack of innovation adoption.”
Legal reputation & risk:
Key problem statements focus on cyber attacks and lack of clarity around data usage & monetization, which can lead to legal and reputation risks, which not only expose cities to financial penalties but can also make them more hesitant to pilot new technologies for fear of negative public perceptions.
Top-voted problem statement: “Citizens & government do not understand their responsibilities around data management leading to legal risks and limited usage.”
Talent & tech adoption:
Key problem statements focus on the demand new technologies place on skillsets and the political risks of trying new technologies, leading to staff turnover and reputational risk of mishandling data.
Top-voted problem statement: “Cities have too much political risk for staff to try new technologies because of the high demand on staff ability and community complaints leading to high staff turnover and loss of talent.”
Bureaucracy:
Key problem statements focus on silos, outdated laws, policies, programs and regulations that lead to slower tech adoption and citizen services/support, consume (especially human) resources, and prevent cities from addressing other priorities such as mobility and climate change.
Top-voted problem statement: “Government has a lack of regulations surrounding A.I. technologies because technology is changing faster than the government can respond, leading to inconsistent requirements for tech development companies and adoption of A.I..”
Social Challenges 1: Accessibility
Physical & mental wellbeing:
Key problem statements focus on low accessibility to physical & mental health support and food, which aggravates social and economic issues, such as crime and chronic homelessness. Historic lack of funding and lack of cultural representation are also contributing factors.
Top-voted problem statement: “Community centres have limited funding because of unsustainable business models leading to physical & mental health challenges.”
Community disintegration:
Key problem statements focus on inequality, exclusion and land use as contributing factors to social division, under-use of infrastructure and community cohesion.
Top-voted problem statement: “Citizens have unequal access to parks and recreational activities because of planning restrictions leading to division within the community.”
Inequality:
Key problem statements focus on unequal access to resources: services, programs, technologies, and the potential for decisions to be further biased by inadequate data.
Top-voted problem statement: “Citizens are subject to uniform one-size-fits-all policies because of equality vs. equity leading to people falling through the cracks and not getting the support they need.”
Social Challenges 2: Housing
Municipal Barriers:
Key problem statements focus on the barriers cities face in providing sufficient affordable housing, driven by legacy infrastructure, NIMBYism and high population growth.
Top-voted problem statement: “Cities are unable to accommodate more people while being livable and environmentally friendly because of legacy infrastructure leading to restricted capabilities to provide adequate housing.”
Social Challenges 3: Citizen Engagement
Low Understanding Of Citizen Needs
Key problem statements focus on how lack of citizen engagement in shaping policy leads to decision making errors or decisions that are not reflective of the population.
Top-voted problem statement: “Cities provide ineffective programs because of lack of engagement leading to the status quo.”
What's next?
In mid-April, we will host a series of interactive roundtables & workshops, with the purpose of developing succinct How might we...? statements, which will be presented to Canadian innovators as a call for innovation. Our goal: to connect Canadian municipalities with Canadian innovations and move the needle on some of these complex challenges.
Director of Partnerships @ GeoMate: AI for active, safe, and inclusive cities.
2 年Looking forward to seeing where this goes!