As the population of the world continues to grow and more people migrate
to urban areas, the infrastructure of our cities will become increasingly strained. It is therefore vital that technology is utilised to create new, intelligent ways of making our urban centres work and to improve existing standards of living. In short, our cities need to become "smart".
But while many people are working towards this goal, how will society know when smart cities are achieved, what are the barriers to getting there, and who needs to be involved to bring about "smartness"? These were just some of the questions discussed by urban development experts at a recent roundtable debate, which was hosted by the Guardian in partnership with IBM. The event was conducted with the anonymity of reporting allowed under the Chatham House rule to encourage frank debate, so this report reflects the themes discussed without attribution.
Although there was a wide variety of opinions on what achieving smart cities means in reality, most participants agreed with one contributor, who said: "It is the question of how we rethink the modern world." A visionary cultural shift in attitude among local authorities is required to help create the smart urban environments of the future, the debate continued.
City managers need to have the vision to drive technological change in collaboration with the private sector, and to look at new ways of working and living, the meeting heard. The methods to achieve these changes need to embrace technical knowledge, the ambitions of the young, and the need for hyper-localised services delivered to globally connected communities.
The importance of recognising that change was inevitable, driven by factors too big to control in the same way the building of roads and ports had shaped Britain in the past, was stressed by one contributor. "None of us has any control over the future – our job is to try and make cities that will fit in with how people work and live in 20 years' time."
One theme that emerged early on was the idea that in the future a lot more people would work from home, due to a combination of new and existing technologies and the need to reduce carbon emissions. It was important to find a balance, said one participant, suggesting that "two days at home, three days at work" was the right mixture of isolation and socialisation, while another participant pointed out that for large parts of the urban workforce – nurses and factory workers, for instance – this "middle-class, utopian vision" was not an option.
But this was the real point, said another contributor: "If the only people who had to travel into a city did so because they had to get to a hospital or a major piece of infrastructure, then your traffic problems would disappear."
Human contact
But people do want "personalised" services, said one participant; while another added: "In the public services, so much of what we do relies upon interaction between people, which you cannot do on a computer. Some areas of the private sector – such as banks and mobile phone companies – are rowing back from that idea of doing everything remotely from call centres, people now say they want to see another human being."
The public sector, it was argued, should respond by creating more localised services and employment, which would also reduce the "daily convergence" into city centres. One contributor said it was necessary to "break the model of centralised distribution" in the existing transport infrastructure. He added: "People will become both more local and more connected, and it's a broader issue than simply one of home working. There will be a reorientation that will create a big and important cultural shift." Another forecast that a "complete change of cultures" more akin to village, parish or church-based communities was likely to occur. Several participants raised the point that it was crucial to be experimental, to find new ways of doing things, and to combat the "risk-averse " attitude of some parts of the public sector. "There has to be a huge cultural shift. We need to give people the opportunity to play with the DNA of cities," said one contributor, while another added: "We need to take risks, to be experimental, to move forward."
Much of this innovation must come from harnessing the abilities of young people by developing their strengths, stressed several participants, one pointing out, as an example, that it was pointless giving young employees electronic lists of telephone contacts when they were more familiar with Skype. Innovation would also have to come from working with local universities and young business entrepreneurs. One contributor said the message given by such people at a recent business convention was: "Just put us in a room together and we will make things happen." Another participant said it was the innovative young designers and architects who were already using "sheer imagination" to envisage what the smart cities of the future would look like.
The point was taken up by one participant who said young entrepreneurs had been engaged to revitalise his city centre with smart-city thinking: "They have a real opportunity to build something very, very different, to rebuild the city with lots of small things and create something that is not just going to be full of familiar high street brands."
However, the low socioeconomic status of parts of some cities presented very different challenges to smart thinking: "We are dealing with some groups of people, like the elderly, who don't even have bank accounts," said one contributor, while another participant pointed out that a 10-minute walk from some so-called "smart city centres" would take you to areas untouched by regeneration. The answer to this was for local authorities to be "enablers" rather than simply vehicles for disbursing regeneration funds, said another participant.
Perhaps one of the most important themes to emerge from the discussion was the idea that a strong overarching vision and a firm sense of identity were needed by cities to ultimately achieve big changes. One participant said: "Where is your vision of what a city should look like in 10, 15, 20 or 100 years? Places that people hold up as smart cities have a really clear vision of where they want to go and they are using technology to get there." It was better than saying, we can do "lots of stuff", said the contributor. "Stuff is not strategy."
This idea was expanded by another contributor who identified two stages to the process: "We can use information technology to help us create ways of making cities work better, such as letting software developers play with bus timetables. That is about rewiring the existing city, making it smarter, but what happens when you have that technology and take it to the next level? Do suburban houses have garages any more? What will streetscapes look like? To what degree can we reconfigure the city? That's where the vision comes in."
However, several participants pointed out that, in the U K, cities were bound by regulations and central government controls, lacking the freedom of, say, Beijing, in building roads for the Olympics. Neither could every city rely upon sporting events, such as the 2012 Olympics in London or the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, to act as forces of regeneration.
Leading role
Local authorities leading from the front in collaboration with other bodies across the public and private sectors was key, said several contributors: "The bes cities will provide leadership, collaboration and strategic drive to achieve the vision of smartness," said one, while another added: "There has to be collaboration, but local authorities have to drive it."
Cities need to strive for a bigger picture, said one participant: "Technology gives us the ability to be flexible, to give us endless possibilities, and we should start from that perspective rather than thinking just about home working or electric cars. The great thing is that today we have the technological ability to provide us with those insights. We need to make good decisions that get us the social outcomes we are trying to achieve."
Finally, some participants said achieving change would come down to simple, old-fashioned "civic pride". "Every town or city has its own sense of identity. Successful cities are the ones that harness that and build on it," said one contributor, while another added: "The private sector has its part to play in creating jobs, but it's the local authority that must provide leadership, to articulate that sense of city pride and passion. It's about giving it that extra bit of 'oomph'."
Credits
Roundtable report commissioned by
Seven Plus and controlled by the Guardian.
Discussion hosted to a brief agreed
with IBM. Paid for by IBM.
Contact Mark Lacey 020-3353 3727.
For information on roundtables visit:
guardian.co.uk/supp-guidelines
