Smart city innovation through policy integration

Praharaj et al. (2018) study India, the world’s fastest growing economy to measure how its cities can support urban innovation. The Smart Cities Mission was rolled out in 2015 in India and have faced many obstacles. One of the main hurdles in the development of the Smart City in India is the overlaps of plan, jurisdiction and responsibilities across institutions. There is lack of convergence of programs throughout the vertical levels of government resulting in the diverging of goals and objective. There is also a concern of inequalities, as the plans mostly target more affluent neighbourhoods, where solutions are easier to implement. 

Thus, to tackle this, integration of plan and consolidation of vision with smart city development goals, emerging smart cities such as in India can better support effective urban transformation and local innovation. To encourage local innovation, local government must invest in the improvement of the manpower capacity while also working toward having more effective coordination mechanism and simplification of government procedures. 

Urban planning must be the core and more integrated function and break the silos between institutions, to work on a longer-term vision rather than the short and dispersed programs. On the other hand, to break the overlaps of authority between local and state government, higher level of government should put more attention to the setting the objectives, benchmarking city performance and support the creation of better smart city ecosystem for all stakeholder involved. 

Reference:

Praharaj, S., Han, J. H., & Hawken, S. (2018). Urban innovation through policy integration: Critical perspectives from 100 smart cities mission in India. City, culture and society, 12, 35-43.

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