This post is written by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director, OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities.

  • The problem: The concept of smart cities needs to overcome issues of trust, and be reorientated and boosted to meet the challenge of net-zero.

  • Why it matters: The climate crisis requires urgent changes to the way in which we live and work, and investment in digital solutions to urban management can reduce emissions, boost outcomes, and engage citizens.

  • The solution: Smart cities projects need to be reframed to meet the climate challenge, and reorientated to put the citizen first - by strengthening governance, increasing participation and boosting investment.

Is the “smart city” concept now middle-aged? It is certainly a concept that has grown and evolved over the last two decades. Some governments are now eager to take the concept in a new direction – and recognise these digital tools as one of our greatest weapons to revitalise democracy and meet our climate ambitions. This would be welcome and timely.

Smart cities have been in the spotlight recently as digital technologies were deployed to support the pandemic response – particularly in cities where digital infrastructure (and smartphone adoption) was already well-established like Seoul and Daegu in South Korea. In these cities, smart city infrastructure and data hubs were critical in monitoring the spread of the virus and supporting contact tracing.

Smarter tools…

Yet digital tools are vital in other ways too. Over the next two decades, hundreds of cities around the world will spend more than $40 trillion to make their infrastructure “smart”. This investment in digital tools can support the green transition by helping generate and conserve energy, improve traffic management and reduce waste, for instance.

Much of this technology already exists. In fact, by 2050 we could reduce current urban emissions by 90% with available technology. There are already many great examples. The city of Yokohama, Japan has reduced its carbon emissions by almost 40,000 tonnes annually by installing energy management systems in 4,200 homes, introducing 2,300 electric vehicles and generating 37 MW of solar power.

Shared mobility solutions could halve the number of vehicle-kilometres travelled in cities, and cut CO2 emissions from urban transport by 30% by 2050. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has adopted an integrated application to combine public transport and other shared mobility services through a single interface.

Helsinki, in Finland, has used a digital City Performance Tool to identify technologies in the building sector that could reduce city-wide emissions by 23%. And in France, the city of Dijon is currently deploying smart street lighting, which promises to cut the energy bill by 65%.

There are major hurdles

Despite the enormous potential of these tools, implementation remains a challenge. Too many deployments have been rushed, piecemeal or quickly become obsolete. Others have proved not to be interoperable and in some cases threatened to lock cities into single suppliers. Some estimates suggest that nearly one-third of smart city projects fail and almost 80% of prototypes have not successfully scaled up to reach the desired scope. Put simply, too many smart city projects have failed to deliver on their grand promise of quicker, more efficient, more responsive management of city life.

Digital deployments are also facing a crisis of citizen confidence. In 2020, trust in technology declined again, reaching all-time lows in 17 of 27 countries surveyed by the Edelman Trust Barometer. Trust in technology fell particularly dramatically in China (-16%), Canada (-15%), the U.S. (-13%) and the UK (-12%). Many digital deployments have paid the price and been abandoned after concerns over the security and use of data.

Doing smart cities right

Governments at all levels need to work to rebuild trust and citizen engagement. Up to now, too many of these technologies have been designed – and operated – behind the scenes. They have been supply-driven, with the private sector often taking the lead in defining both the problem and the solution – seeking fast fixes to urban management without engaging citizens.

A different approach is possible – one that puts citizens in the driving seat. Digital tools can instead empower citizens. They can provide a platform for citizen engagement, participation and feedback, and opportunities to co-design new systems with residents. The city of San Francisco has been working to improve participation through their Civic Bridge platform, bringing together citizens and volunteers from the private sector with city staff.

Governments also need stronger skills and systems to identify, design and manage smart city projects. To succeed cites will need to develop stronger management structures that:

  • protect citizens and provide assurances over security, resilience, privacy and fairness;
  • ensure interoperability in solutions;
  • level the playing field between firms;
  • manage potential conflicts of interest between the public and the private sectors; and
  • strengthen the monitoring, evaluation and communication of the outcomes of projects to better measure the impact of these solutions on people’s well-being.

Here national governments can play an important role, for example through technical support to set up the right structures, boost capability, and avoid a widening digital gap between cities.

There is no time to waste. The window of opportunity to embrace the green transition is closing. Governments at all levels need to be ambitious and look to harness the power of digital tools – rebuilding trust and using technology to promote democracy, and put citizens’ priorities and wellbeing at its core.

Let’s reimagine the smart city concept to get us there.

To learn more about OECD work on cities, click here https://www.oecd.org/cfe/cities/

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