The use of the word Smart Cities has become extremely popular over the last years in the agenda of many decision makers in all society sectors. The fascination for this term has motivated the production of many literature in this area. The Smart Cities term is relatively new although the idea of using technology to modernise the city is not. Popular terms in the past included Intelligent Cities, U-Cities, Cities 2.0 or Digital Cities, the past two having fell slightly into disuse. Here follows a comparative graph of the three most used terms these last years using Google Trends today:
It might be because of this rapid popularity and a variety of interpretations that there is not a clear definition of what a Smart City is. Despite of this, the Smart city revolution represents a unique opportunity for many. For IT stakeholders (that is the case of IBM or Cisco to name some), the “Smart City” labelling has become a fantastic marketing strategy to push the market for their solutions and products for cities and urban areas. For city managers, this term seems to be the ultimate help with which to compete in the global innovation run towards worldwide recognition.
In the framework of a financial crisis whose end we are still unable to foresee and the public incomes decreasing dramatically, cities are starting to compete in the global world regardless of their nation-states with the aim of attracting talent, investment, entrepreneurs or big multinationals landing in the renewed cities and, ultimately, to promote new opportunities for local companies and entrepreneurs. In this context, the Smart City run represent a great chance to (re)urbanise cities with the help of innovative solutions based on an intensive use of new technologies.
Thinking in this, many cities worldwide have been tempted to start defining and implementing their own Smart City plans. However, is there a common model for them to follow? Regarding the help of IT providers, can all private solutions be tailored to fit every city's unique casuistry?
The first attempts to implement Smart City strategies have proved that, even with close cities, there is no common Smart City model and every city has adapted it to their own constraints. In Europe, for instance, we can find the examples of Malaga focusing on creating infrastructure of sensors for the city whereas cities like Amsterdam are opting to implement a wide variety of actions from opening public data to energy efficiency actions. Outside European borders, cities like Kochi have started building new business districts equipped with the latest technological solutions and some cities like Masdar have started construction from scratch. It seems that there are as many Smart City models as cities willing to become one and common assets are still unclear.
The future of the Smart Cities is, however, promising. Despite the initial conceptual disparities, Smart Cities seem to be a unique ecosystem that brings together traditionally opposite stakeholders that work together for the benefit of urban areas. These stakeholders are:
- local public entities - municipalities and councils that need to have a clear view on their needs and constraints to be able to manage the Smart City change, providers of user-driven scenarios
- private sector - SMEs, entrepreneurs, big companies that have seen an enormous potential market in this new ecosystem
- university & research centres & living labs - facilirators of co-creation models
- end users - citizens / citizeneers, companies...the key piece in this puzzle
This scenario is exciting and the changes to come will surely be worth witnessing. Hopefully we will be able to do so in this blog!
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