U-cities: Seeking the right combination

 “Smart” (city, government, planet…) seems to be the new buzzword among planners and business leaders around the world. Smartening cities means making the best out of new technologies available in order to optimize municipal services such as sewage, heating, waste management and public transportation. The optimization of the city’s resources would catalyze economic growth and sustainable development. IBM, Cisco, and Siemens among others, are 'first movers' in proposing high tech solutions for more efficient urban services, from simple retrofitting to genuine fusion of municipal services, all monitored from a same control room.

“Smartening strategies” sometimes consist of a simple update. For instance Siemens Transportation Systems has supplied Oslo with eco-friendly metro trains that consume 30% less energy than the former and that are 95% recyclable. Another city embracing smart technologies in the field of transportation is San Francisco, where the municipality has put sensors into 7,000 metered parking spots and 12,250 spots in city garages. From their smartphones, drivers can now see a map showing which blocks have lots of places (in blue) and which are full (in red). A 10% decrease of congestion is attributed to the implementation of the system.

On a larger scale, Barcelona is reconsidering its entire infrastructure. Collaborating with CISCO, the city is developing a single information-processing model. This new system will process the municipal services' information in a more integrated manner. Cost-effectiveness, accessibility to information and optimization of the urban resources are among the benefices expected. For instance, in case of a road accident, traffic lights would automatically turn amber, luminous road signs would provide real-time information to drivers, the city police would automatically receive an alert, etc.

When it comes to brand new cities built from the ground, this type of ‘smart’ connectivity can be embedded in the city’s infrastructure from the beginning of the construction. Moving beyond sustainability, South Korea is constructing no less than 20 Ubiquitous-Cities – a city where all information systems are linked, such as the Songdo International Business District. Some of the U-cities’ services are “u-Home”, “u-Work”, “u-Traffic”, “u-Health”, “u-Environment”, “u-Public service” and “u-Education”: from their smartphones and computers, the residents will be able to monitor their dwelling’s heating, to plan their journeys to work, to have a videoconference with a doctor.

Showcased as a green revolution, this all-embracing connectivity model is not always relevant. Monitoring heating and lights from your computer might certainly help you reduce your energy consumption, but unlocking your door from your Iphone is just a funny gadget – that might appear as outdated within ten years.
Between all the new technologies available, cities will have to choose the most effective, enduring and adaptable, instead of getting an “all-included kit” and calculating CO2 reductions a posteriori. “If Songdo ends up a sterile metropolis for global executives and their desperate housewives, it will fail.” explains John Alridges.
Bordering on technology overdose, a little flexible masterplan leaves no room for adaptation and creativity, forgetting to provide the city with a thriving and lively environment.

New technologies open up a huge potential for cost-effective management, data accessibility and energy savings. Information processing systems, retrofitting solutions, augmented reality apps applied to cities will generate green growth in the next decades. Are smart solutions the same around the world? Not necessarily. For example, buildings accounts for 62% of CO2 emissions in North America, but only for 23% in Latin America, signifying different priorities. Building smart and livable city will take more than a technology fix: trials, readjustments and selection are inevitable. Thinking smart and acting sustainably is indeed a question about habitus and changing mindsets.

Rather than retrofitting old cities, the buzz today is about building entire smart cities from scratch in a matter of a few years at what seems to be an average price of $30 billion to $60 billion dollars [...] Building such a city at all is a daunting proposition, but I believe the biggest challenge is more conceptual: it is the need to design a system that puts all that technology truly at the service of the inhabitants—and not the other way around.
Saskia Sassen, Talking back to your intelligent city, McKinsey digital.

Read more about Saskia Sassen's opinion on Smart Cities in two recent interviews from What Matters, a McKinsey website, and Lift.