YOUR GUIDE TO THE FUTURE

Through analysing the Smart City initiatives that Songdo, Masdar, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Brisbane implemented through their applied technology, policy and community, there are lesson learned that other cities could apply to achieve success

Responding to the finding of five key factors that are affecting the smart city transformation readiness, Yigitcanlar et al. (2021) developed four steps that could help policy maker, planners, and city managers to encourage smart and sustainable cities.

Yigitcanlar et al. (2021) identifies five key factors that determine 65% of smart city transformation readiness in Australian cities. The factors were identified through the analysis of 180 LGAs in Australia that prioritise their policy and public fund to support the smartness and competitiveness of the city.

Helsinki provides an example on how to encourage innovation in the region that would eventually improve the quality of life of its citizens. The government held competitions that utilised the existing Open Data service to the citizens and start-ups that encouraged the creations of products and services that would benefit the city.

Generally, people choose their mode of transport based on the information that they are exposed to. However, this mostly leads to non-optimised travel choices or even inefficiency. Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS), is a concept that integrates travel modes and service in a single platform to create transit that is seamless and sustainable.

In the effort of transitioning to more sustainable energy production and consumption, a smart city project SINFONIA was developed as part of the European Union sustainability agenda. Part of this project includes the deep energy retrofitting of real-estate assets in mid-sized cities in Europe.

In the sector of economic growth, Australian Smart Cities are taking the approach of ‘innovation-led’ for employment growth. However, from evidence of cities around the globe, innovation-based cities are associated with less affordable housing.

To tackle the challenges cities are facing today, transformative action must be taken. Newton and Frantzeskaki (2021) suggest a new urban governance platform that could become a medium for experiments and decision making that could accelerate the transformative changes in cities.

With the advancement and change that technology brought to the urban landscape, how we use public space in urban context also changes. Streets, plaza, and parks used to be the main physical public space where people shared the city’s resources.

Throughout the life cycle of a building, from construction, operation, and demolition, consumes a lot of energy. Accordingly, improving the efficiency of one step of the life cycle can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the building. One notable way to do this is to practice better passive design that will eventually reduce the energy demand.

The advancement of technology has given way to innovation of smarter materials for buildings. Mohammed (2017) defined “smart material” in building construction as high technological material that responds intelligently to climatic changes and different seasons.

In the age of sensors, wireless networks, smartphones and other interactive technologies; the important role of physical public space may be overlooked. However, integrating those interactive technology can improve the qualities of physical space as de Waal et al. (2021) explains the five concepts that can enhance the public space qualities in cities

In the last few years, various alternatives of mobility pop up that integrates advance technology, including e-scooters. this welcomes the discussion of how cities can support, manage and regulate the various alternatives in the public roads.

Cities that are citizen-driven show significant success and replicability rate in delivering smart city projects. This is due to the co-creation aspect in the delivery process ensures that the vision is better accepted by the citizen, which in result increases the likelihood of the improvement of the citizen's wellbeing.

In the US, building operations use roughly 12% freshwater consumption. Therefore, advancing water resource management in buildings can help mitigate water scarcity in urban areas. Amaral et al. list evidence-based practices that are significant in improving the water resource management of building operations.

Sustainable building practice considers the social, financial and environmental impact of the building throughout the whole life cycle of the building, including the generation of waste during construction.

Technological innovation and economic prosperity as objectives of Smart City cannot fully succeed without appropriate citizen and community support and participation. One substantial group of the citizens that is often overlooked are children.

Smart City is a city that is resilient and capable of adapting to current and future pressure to its urban system, such as the intense climate change impact, Fernández et al. (2020) suggests. From best practices in Barcelona, Rotterdam and Vienna, indicate that integration of economic and environmental strategies are crucial in contributing to ensure better quality of life.

A study provides evidence that suggests the crucial role cities have in mitigating climate change through their techno-policies choices. Sethi et al. (2020) identifies key sectors that should take a bigger role in adapting and mitigating climate change in cities, including waste, transport, energy, and buildings.

A big part to attain the Sustainable Development Goals by the UN includes the transformation in how we do the economy. The business as usual of a linear economy where a product will end up in a landfill when its lifecycle ends is no longer sustainable as this promotes the extraction of our limited and ever more scarce natural resource.

Noise pollution in urban areas is a serious threat to the health and wellbeing of city inhabitants. City government must take deliberate action to prevent the damage to their inhabitants. To help city government as well as other city stakeholder reduce the noise pollution, Bello et al. (2019) invented SONYC (Sound of New York City) a system for monitoring, analysing, and mitigating urban noise pollution with its first case study in New York, one of the busiest and noisiest cities in the world.

The wide use of smart technology has allowed us to get accurate geographic information of a city or area. The use of spatial data should enhance the analysis of planner and provide evidence on how the city tackles inequalities. Du et al. (2021) take New York City as a case study to introduce a new qualitative methodological approach to assess how urban resource are distributed.

In 2011, Malmo, a city in Sweden signed the Climate Contract, a collaboration between the city government and private companies that aims to develop a sustainable and energy efficient city in Malmo. Through this contract, the impact of smart solutions in the City of Malmo to urban governance were studied.

Food security issues usually take the front seat in the discussion of urban food systems. Innovation in Smart Cities could take form in both technology and social. Maye (2019) bridges the discussion of ‘Smart City’ and ‘Urban Food Practice’ and shows how they relate to many more issues and stakeholders and has the potential for more holistic transformation within the urban society through four elements.

Bodø is a municipality located in the northern part of Norway with 51,000 inhabitants. The city is going through a major transformation as the national air force base in Bodø is being relocated by the Norway national government. The Smart Bodø program is being introduced to transform the city.

In 2018, Woetzel and Kuznetsova conducted a study on the adoption of Smart Solutions in cities around the globe. The study analyses what and why a certain smart city innovation is adopted by the citizen and found that the factors vary between cities and technology.

By comparing the Smart City plan implemented in two cities in South Korea, Gimpo and Namyangju, Myeong et al. (2021) found the key to successfully building a culture of innovation in the city. Gimpo and Namyangju, both adopt the Smart City Concept in their city development through different approaches.

Data or metrics are becoming an important urban resource in the city’s policy making. Social media as a platform that enables the analysis of geographic data also become an attractive region that city authorities refer to. Zook (2017) on the other hand, is on the fence with this idea.

A city is an ever growing and evolving system. Smart city as a concept of urban development, as well as cities are inevitably incomplete projects that requires constant upgrade and update, Houston et al. (2019) argued. Yet, often, smart city plan is viewed as a monolithic process without the consideration of the reality that the system is often “buggy, brittle and bugged”.

Smart growth is a planning concept that aims to build a more compact city design with diverse transportation options and mixed use of land. This concept is considered to address today’s urban challenge of pollution, congestion, long commute time and loss of natural habitat.