Cities in a Time of Global Emergencies

Cities in a time of global emergencies 2

identified in the first volume. 1 These priorities also correspond to the categories used in the IMD-SUTD Smart City Index, 2 namely, health and safety, mobility, activities, opportunities, and governance. However, in carrying out the 10 case studies included here, special attention was paid to the ways in which smart cities are addressing the joint emergencies of climate change and COVID-19. The geographic diversity of the cities studied can be seen in Figure 1 . In addition, we study a diverse group of cities with respect to size as outlined in Table 1 . From Kigali, the capital of Rwanda with 1.2 million people, to Tokyo, the capital of Japan with 37.4 million people, the challenges of each of these urban settings are quite different. Yet, the objective of all the city officials is the same: to improve the quality of the lives of their residents.

Figure 1 – Location of the 10 cities covered

VIENNA

TOKYO

TEL AVIV

SHANGHAI

MADINAH

MUMBAI

MANILA

KIGALI

SANTIAGO

MELBOURNE

What did we learn from these 10 smart cities?

Seven key lessons emerge from this second set of case studies: • The “pioneers” (i.e. those cities with already more than a few years’ practice as “smart cities”) have adjusted their strategies. • Top-down or bottom-up: experimentation goes on. • COVID-19 has highlighted complexities in governance. • Smart cities address climate and health resilience as one single endeavor. • Smart cities can be places of greater disparities.

1 Bris and al. (2019). 2 https://www.imd.org/news/updates/data-shows-effects-of-covid-and-climate-change-on-citizens-perceptions-of-how-smart-their- cities-are/