The Smart City

an Introduction

Smart City thinking is increasingly prevalent within political and commercial visions for the urban future; responding to pressures and challenges presented by growing city populations, sustainability challenges and advances in digital technology.

Concept
The Smart City in concept casts urban performance as a function of the complex interplay between systems composed of infrastructures, capital, assets, behaviours, and cultures; spanning the economic, social, technological, political, and environmental. In this context, the city is viewed as a system of systems with the Smart City having realised benefits through integration and coherence amongst its systems1. Examples of work seeking to develop a framework for inquiry illuminate dimensions of a Smart City model; the European Smart Cities project proposes six1: Smart Economy Smart People Smart Governance Smart Mobility Smart Environment Smart Living > > > > > > Innovation and Competitiveness Creativity and Social Capital Empowerment and Participation Transport and Infrastructure Sustainability and Resources Quality of Life and Culture

This holistic nature of the Smart City framework connects it to a host of preceding ideas such as Liveable Communities, Sustainable Communities and the Creative, Digital, Learning, and Intelligent City models. Such frameworks fuel efforts to measure and rank the extent to which cities exhibit Smart qualities. Ranking of Cities in this way has a long lineage tracing back to the work of Florida. The European Smart Cities project applied their framework of indicators to observe Smart Governance in Aarhus due to transparency and Smart Economy in Luxembourg due to economic image3.

Practice
In moving from observation and theory to strategic application, the Smart City concept begins to fragment; arguably as a consequence of the scope and complexity of forming a Smart City Masterplan. In practice, pursuit of the qualities of the Smart City can be seen to drive a diverse landscape of strategic programmes in the public and private sector. Examples of explicit usage of the Smart City concept include: City of Edinburgh Council Smart City vision focussing on e-Government infrastructure to improve the performance and delivery of public services whilst supporting access and participation4 Amsterdam Smart City business, government, community partnership pursuing a project portfolio focussed on energy-saving in the form of Sustainable-Work, Living, Mobility, and Public Spaces5 In each case, the role of novel infrastructure serving as a platform or facilitator of new beneficial behaviour is apparent; a relationship forming the backbone of a number of Smart City programmes. ICT infrastructures underpinned by a new generation of mobile technologies, connected devices, network platforms, and associated software hold a central position in this landscape. As an example, IBMs Smarter Planet campaign forwards a vision of an increasingly instrumented, inter-connected, and intelligent urban system; focussing on positive impacts of ICT on the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare, power, transport, and the practice of commerce and work6. In research published for the World Cities Summit 2010, a series of projects demonstrating ICT application to improving city management are considered; featuring mobile information apps, smart meter enabled intelligent energy systems, and monitoring grid facilitated adaptive traffic signalling7.

Future Directions
A key emphasis in Smart City projects is leverage of multiple benefits from integrated technological solutions. The Copenhagen Wheel from MIT presents an energy capture system to aid cycling that integrates real-time pollution and traffic monitoring technology and provides information for the cycling population via a mobile app informing journey planning8. The project presents a vision of projects facilitated by connected device infrastructure that bridge Smart City dimensions; the Wheel associated with a range of outputs regarding transport, health, pollution, and congestion. Thus, projects that fit together in pursuit of Smart City qualities may be considered: Development and utilisation of a networked hard and soft infrastructures Support of open information and stimulation of the knowledge economy Tracking and development of innovative and creative capacity Stimulation of enterprise and entrepreneurship for growth and competitiveness Development of participatory governance and enhanced democracy Attainment of environmental, social, and economic sustainability

Although not necessarily new, the Smart City perspective compels consideration of how such projects build together and how they might be underpinned by a coherent platform of hard and soft infrastructures. Technologies serving intelligence, monitoring, and feedback in development of strategy are a primary aspect of such efforts. In this vein, works such as Corridor Manchesters current move to develop a landscape of connected monitoring devices supporting impact mapping and programme design across economic, social and environmental domains presents a key feature of Smart City strategy9.

1 IBM Smart Cities: www.ibm.com/uk/cities 2 EuropeanSmartCities report: www.smart-cities.eu/download/smart_cities_final_report.pdf 3 EuropeanSmartCities website: www.smart-cities.eu 4 Edinburgh Smart City Action Plan: www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/council/ campaigns_and_projects/cec_smart_city_home_page 5 Amsterdam Smart City: www.amsterdamsmartcity.nl 6 IBM Smarter Planet campaign: www.ibm.com/uk/smarterplanet 7 Economist Intelligence Unit. 2010. ICT for City Management. Sponsored by Siemens, published in conjunction with the World Cities Summit 2010 8 Copenhagen Wheel: http://senseable.mit.edu/copenhagenwheel/index.html 9 Corridor Manchester: www.corridormanchester.com

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