So You think You’re Smart?
This is what it means to be a smart city?
A smart city can offer many opportunities to reduce costs to the cities in the long run. What exactly is a smart city and what does it offer its residents? I have traveled extensively throughout the United States and whenever I do I always like to approach and view a community through the lens of a would-be resident. In other words I like to pretend that I am planning a move to that city or have been assigned through my job to move to that community.
It’s a fun exercise and you really do look at your community in a different way. I often do that in the communities in which I have worked as well. I assume that I don’t live or work there and that perhaps I am a consultant seeking on behalf of my client to consider the community for my client. What would I look at and what do I really see?
In my time as an economic developer over the past 25 years, the world has obviously changed. Many communities are still engaged in an industrial era game of romancing site-consultants and industrial decision makers as to the virtues of their community and why they should move their clients or their companies respectively there. This game on a percentage basis is a losers game. The “house” always wins as they say in Vegas, so you may want to consider other approaches.
I always found this extremely difficult and not a good formula for winning. My approach for successful economic development was to concentrate on the strengths of the community I work or live in and try to build them and capitalize on them for the companies that already exist.
In today’s world it would be highly advantageous for communities to look at what they already have from existing industry, to infrastructure to demographics. Let’s quickly look at each of these and do a quick analysis:
Existing industry — it is very easy to look and see what local industry is up to. From business retention visits to baseline and cluster studies it is easy to determine the “personality” of your community, see the trends of where you have been and where you are going. There are dozens of economic development consultants that would be happy to take your money to do this. What does it tell you?
It tells you whether your community is dying or growing. Older commoditized industries (like my hometown which made more nuts and bolts than any place in the world in the 1960s’) are not your future. New information and data-based industries are where you want to bet on. And if you don’t have these industries there are ways to “create” them.
Infrastructure — What does your community look like from an infrastructure viewpoint. The roads might be paved or resurfaced and wide, but what about mass transit services, rental bikes and scooters and places to safely use them? How about what lies beneath? In the part of New York (upstate) where I recently worked, one city was digging up still operating (or, in many cases, not) wooden water mains from the previous century.
Do you have a robust fiber optics installation? Do you know the status of wifi in the areas where younger innovative people are living or what to live? Do you have electric charging stations for electric cars?
Having and installing sensors to become a smart city is vitally critical to compete in the 21st century. Sensors that measure traffic flow, pedestrian and bike traffic, anticipate water and sewer main breaks, and other bits and pieces of data can appeal to new investments by existing companies and new companies.
Demographics — Data about who lives in your community will obviously give a plethora of information. Look at these very carefully. If not, if one ignores what this is telling you, your community will gradually whither and potentially die.
Not to be morbid but in reality this is true. What are doing to replace the older population that is either dying or moving away to some sunny spot in a southern state? Young people think differently these days. They don’t want to own property or cars. They love urban areas and opportunities to socialize and be part of a vibrant music and entertainment culture. They have less money due to the tremendous burden of school loans and need low cost and easy places to congregate and live.
Many books have been written about this and there are many strategies to deal with these types of change. Take a look at your community and see what the data is telling you. Build strategies around the data and your community will come out on top. Being smart isn’t always personal. Sometimes the community can exhibit some intelligence and win at the game of prosperous and vibrant “smart” cities.
