SAE Update - November 2022 - 12

TECH FOCUS:
SmArT CiTiES
Smart Cities Will Never Happen...
...we should build them anyway.
first being that smart cities will never happen, and the
second being that we should build smart cities
anyway.
To reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable
statements, we need to look at how " smart city " as a
concept evolved, how the definition evolved, and how
the term creates and promotes poor strategy and
execution in real life. Only then can we separate the
wheat from the chaff.
The concept of smart cities arises from several
forcing factors, but the two most important are human
migration trends and social expectations. Several years
ago, the United Nations predicted that by 2050, 87% of
the world's population will live in urban areas. Cities
offer many benefits, but are also burdened with
challenges arising from resource management, housing
efficiency, transportation efficiency, public safety,
quality of life, and other issues well familiar to anyone
who's lived in a city. Local governments asked, " How
will we manage this growth? " Technology was a
seemingly obvious solution.
At the same time, the ways we interact and manage
our daily lives shifted from postal mail, telephones,
and fax machines to online systems via websites,
email, and applications. In 2022, the oldest Millennials
reached middle age, and the oldest Centennials
(sometimes called Generation Z) have graduated from
college and are building their wealth and careers.
Millennials and Centennials - both of these " digital
native generations " - are displacing pre-internet
generations in economic and political power. These
generations are accustomed to using digital
interaction for almost everything: accessing
information, ordering food, requesting transportation,
determining transit schedules, receiving walking or
driving directions, etc. So when interacting with City
12
November 2022
Hall, digital natives want local
government to be equally userfocused
and responsive.
Thus, cities wanted to use
more technology, and residents
wanted cities to use more
technology. Younger residents
wanted their cities to be smart,
or at least operate in smarter and
more efficient ways. On paper,
smart cities seemed both
obvious and inevitable. Cities
would implement technology to
become more efficient, and
residents would be happy. Cities
would become smart. As Hamlet
lamented, ay, there's the rub.
It's been said, " What gets
measured gets done. " In order to
measure something, a definition
or specification is needed. Early
on, I realized that defining a
smart city was effectively
impossible. Hundreds if not
thousands of definitions cropped
up all over the world, but most
smart city definitions read like
political campaign mailers, with
lots of lofty words but very few
if any specifics. There are several
efforts under way to create
standards for technologies and
interoperability, and some best
practice efforts, but none of
these can answer the question,
" What is a smart city? "
UPDATE
SAE Update - November 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SAE Update - November 2022
