Sixteen Shades of Smart - Preview

25 Sixteen shades of smart

Of course, some of the challenges that cities face may be independent of economic development. Instead, they may be related to the size of the city. For instance, smart initiatives related to the environment are adopted in high-income cities and, at the same time, in lower income, populous urban settings such as Bengaluru (Bangalore) and Jakarta. This is one reason why letting cities provide their own narrative and operate choices among various priorities was preferred. There are additional elements present in all the cities studied. The first relates to addressing economic activity and, therefore, strengthening commerce. This serves to make the city more appealing for employment (both for maintaining the city’s talent base and for attracting talent from outside), as well as for entrepreneurs and companies that may consider investing in a particular city, or selecting it as a local, national, regional or global hub. The second element is related to information technology infrastructure. This point comes as no surprise given that the cities studied have generally used information technology to enhance their services for a number of years. The final dimension is that of sustainability, which includes efforts to enhance safety, improve public and private transportation, and protect the environment through, for example, better waste management and cleaner air. Another insight gained from the cases regards the relationship between the tools and mechanisms used by specific cities to implement smart initiatives and projects on one hand, and the amount of resources available to them on the other. Figure 4 captures this relationship.