What makes a city smart? And, how does it become smarter?
The smart city concept emerged from a technical context. Definitions of the concept have ever since, stated that smart cities use technology in general and digital technology and information in particular, to create value.
Definitions like these can in immature or limited contexts be useful but in most cases they are no longer valid. The reason for this is that it is impossible to distinguish the impact (or contribution) digital technologies have on the values that is created in a city, from the contribution that other functions and capabilities may have.
Since synergies are one of the most characteristic features of digitalisation it may even be the case that investments in and consumption of technology decreases while the value that the city distributes to people increases.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say a city´s mobility system evolves, from an average contemporary one with cars, public transportation and some micro-mobility as bikes and e-scooters, to a fairly developed driver-less mobility as a service system. And, let’s start by focusing on cars.
From this mobility perspective you can say that we today are in a pre-smart-city phase. Most car manufacturers are developing self-driving cars. Most of these are autonomous cars. That is, each car has a system of its own that helps it find its way and avoid bumping into other vehicles, things and people.
This isn’t very smart because it is new technology used to create basically the same value as before, in pretty much the same way as before. The customer is the driver/owner of the car and the system that drives the car is designed to mimic the experienced driver. The added values for the city are limited if any.
In the next phase, values are added in line with the first generation of smart city definitions. Cars becomes connected. They connect to other vehicles and to systems that operates in the city. In this way they don’t just drive themselves and the on-board driver. They can coordinate their actions with other vehicles and the systems that operates in the city. They can even be driven by the systems that operates in the city. This makes traffic flows more efficient and on-board drivers are no longer a necessity. The fact that vehicles can be driven by the systems creates all kinds of possibilities.
No city or society has evolved from connected cars as products (owning/buying a vehicle) to a driverless mobility as a service system. The purpose of this text is not an analysis of that evolution, but an interesting aspect, that has a certain value here is what happens when there are fewer drivers. As the numbers of drivers decrease, drivers influence will gradually decrease on the development of vehicles and on the development of the driving environment. This will probably make it less exciting to drive and, as a consequence of that, less attractive to own a car. The question one can ask is, who will grasp that influential power? Is it the produceras, the consumers or the community as a whole? And, how will that affect the value for the city?
It is when mobility as a product is replaced by Mobility as a service that it becomes really interesting from a smart city concept perspective. When this happens, vehicles utilization rate will increase. The effect of this will be that the number of vehicles will decrease, as will the need for road capacity, parking spaces and other related infrastructure. As a consequence of this, the space a city needs to provide for cars and infrastructure decreases. This will make more space available for businesses, housing, public places and all kind of human activity.
And here comes reason why it’s so interesting. As more space in a city becomes available for people’s needs, distances will decrease, as will the need for mobility as a service. So, there is not only a decrease in technical products and investments, there is also a decreased use of the digital services that replaced the technology in the first place.
Although the presumably positive effects for the city would not have been possible without digital technology, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to determine the connection between digital technology and the initiatives in the city that contributes to these values. For example, all the initiatives required to turn a parking lot into a vibrant green park.
If a city evolves as in the mobility example, where most of the development initiatives that contribute to the city’s increased value for people, might fall outside the criteria of the traditional smart city concept, we must rethink its definition.
A smart city definition is needed that embraces development and does not differentiate what is smart or not, depending on the relation to a particular type of technology. Focus needs to be on the development side of smart. What makes a city smart has to do with how it develops — how it creates value for the city. This gives us the first part of a new definition. That is, A city is smart (and becomes smarter) if it develops.
To free the concept from specific types of technologies, the definition needs something more generic, for example function. I would say that essence of what constitutes a city is people and their ability to coordinate their resources — tangible and intangible — to create value for themselves. Then, a city can be defined as people who use coordinated functions.
I suppose most of us imagine that a city and the place it is at, will exist forever. Development, that is about creating value for a city, must then be sustainable. Since the future is infinitely long, each unsustainable effect has an infinitely large negative value that can never be offset by a positive value for a foreseeable future.
Then a smart city develops sustainably through the increased value added by society’s coordinated functions to people’s lives. If the city doesn´t develop (becomes smarter), it is not smart. If it is not sustainable, it is not smart.
