YOUR GUIDE TO THE FUTURE

Proximity to services, education and employment opportunities are the main attraction to city living. These factors are also the reason young families choose the city centre as their home. However, the city centre may not always be suitable for raising children, as the main trend of families still choose suburban living.

As part of the Smarter London Strategy, the 33 local authorities are working together to create more user-designed services. This mission is a way to create Smart City that is in tune with what the citizen need. To support this, London also developed new approaches that ensure digital inclusion, so that everyone can access the public services online.

The Mayor of London believes that improving walkability in the city can significantly improve the people’s quality of life. It is a mode of transport that is low in emission, reduces the noise pollution, encourages interaction in the public space while also improving the citizens’ health.

A study on smart cities in Nottingham, Stavanger and Stockholm proved that Smart City Project may serve as a catalyst in creating a more sustainable urban energy use and management. The study found a link that although a local smart city initiative does not aim specifically to improve the urban energy sustainability, it still encourages cities to achieve a more sustainable way to manage their energy system.

Barcelona and Madrid have successfully started to incorporate civil engagement and participation online, through the platforms called Decide Madrid and Barcelona Decidim. The function in these platforms include citizen debates, citizen proposal, citizen budget and citizen plan.

Adopting hybrid management model in smart cities is one way to bring together different actors, interests, and practice to share a same vision. It is a way to simplify and clearing up uncertainties in managing multiple complicated projects such as smart city.

Different from traditional business model, hybrid management model aims to respond to multiple mission. Smart city initiatives with hybrid management serve the purpose of not only generating profit, but also communicating with the citizens as well as managing multiple projects at once.

In 2019, Dowling et al. documented the smart city initiatives Australian Local Governments’ employ in their jurisdiction. With the limited resources and scale that municipalities have, local governments should be deliberate in implementing Smart City Initiatives in their jurisdiction.

ICT is a powerful tool to achieve smart city including in the dimension of the governance system. Utilising ICT to encourage better public participation in the policy design and decision making is considered one of the goals of smart city approach.

The attractiveness of a smart city is in the eye of beholders, Romao et al. (2018) argues. Through his study on the factors that influenced how residents and tourists rate the attractiveness of their cities. For instance, population growth is influenced by the economic condition and the availability of cultural interaction in the city.

One of the objectives of Smart City concept is to incorporate the public into the city’s decision making. “People-centric” governance are the core framework that many smart cities incorporate in their masterplan. However, in many cases, Smart City only reflects the opportunistic nature to promote economic activity without even considering the inhabitants needs.

Housing affordability, traffic congestion, air pollution are common issues that cities across the world face with the pressure from various human activities. However, despite the similarities, each city may also have issues unique to them due to the varying socio economic or geographical condition.

A study in 2019 analysed the best practices that successful European cities use as part of their strategic principles in designing and implementing the vision of smart city. One of the critical strategic principles is to accelerate the city’s digital transformation by establishing a smart city accelerator.

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.

Urban planning in many governments may still mostly use the top-down approach, including in the development of Smart City. However, this approach often neglects what the citizens’ actually want and need. Building a people-centric smart city shows a benefit of services being used more by the citizen, as they perceived them crucial in their well-being in their urban life.

Smart City is adapted more and more for the development of cities around the world. However, the pace of change may have differed from one another. Ooms et al. (2020) recognise that for each city the level of advancement of which they adapt the concept matters to the type of governance they required to thrive.

Densely built cities made from low albedo materials, lack of green infrastructure, traffic and other human activities have caused a phenomenon called urban heat island effect (UHI), where the urban air temperature is higher than the surrounding rural environment.

Both are required to achieve smart city success, according to case study of four European cities, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Helsinki and Vienna. Government plays an important role in creating the grand design and strategies of smart city.

Mora et al. (2019) highlights the strategic principle that drives the development of smart cities in Europe, to look beyond technology. Developing smart cities is about tackling complex socio-technical systems that mitigates or resolve urban challenges.

One way to build a strong sense of community in the city is to create high quality public spaces. Citizen well being may also improve due to the greater sense of community from feeling safe, secure and sufficient civic participation in the neighbourhood.

The level of user-friendliness on our city streets is an important quality to ensure people come and enjoy the city, especially the commercial area. A successful street is part of the public space in cities, measured by how well they attract people and how many people are present.

To cope with increasing temperature in cities, Livesley et al. (2021) proposed small-scale solutions that cities can use to increase thermal comfort to not only humans but also fauna living in the urban environment.

Smart City as a widespread concept for city development around the world, Esposito et al. (2021) calls regional governments to formulate place-based strategies that are aligned with the context of each municipality. One size does not fit all when implementing smart city initiatives in cities with different socio-economic situations.

Adaptive reuse is a strategy of converting an existing building to a new kind of function or activities. It is a strategy that supports the smart growth of the city with its infill development while also serving as a historic and cultural preservation method.

Adaptive reuse is a historical & cultural preservation strategy that can benefit the economy of the city. Through the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO), Los Angeles shows how encouraging adaptive reuse within the city’s transit hubs has helped the economic revitalisation of Downtown Los Angeles.

The complex and unpredictable nature of urban problems make ways for big data to contribute to addressing it. Big data analytics that are applied to urban governance and planning, could inform decision makers and city governments in the strategic, long term urban policy, Kandt and Batty (2021) argue.

The idea of compact cities claims to provide people with everything they need within the community, from stores, schools, employment, public service, and other amenities in a densely built urban area. However, this concept received many critics to how much they contribute to the environmental, social, and economic benefit to the community.

UN defines water security as the capacity to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quality of water for human well being and socio-economic development while ensuring protection against water borne pollution and water related disaster and preserving the natural ecosystem.

Challenged with massive growth and pressure from various human activities, providing clean and save water is one of the serious issues cities must tackle. Better water management that ensures the availability of water more efficiently is urgently needed.

ICT is a powerful tool being adopted in Smart Cities across the globe, to achieve integration between agencies and enabling information to various city stakeholders. Example of the use of ICT around the city include sensors that are beneficial in gathering data in real time and social media as a bridge between the citizens and public service provider and the government.