Cities are fast becoming “smart,” and the impact on people’s lives can be immense. Singapore’s smart traffic cameras restrict traffic depending on volume and ease the commute of thousands of passengers every day. In Kaunas, Lithuania, the cost of parking is automatically deducted from the bank accounts of drivers when they park their cars. In many cities, the timing of public buses is announced at each stop with almost perfect accuracy. And free Wi-Fi is now accessible across entire cities, including Buenos Aires, Argentina and Ramallah, Palestine.
Today, improving urban services through digital transformation is a huge industry, dominated by the likes of Cisco and IBM. But the idea of a “smart city” encompasses more than the clever application of technology in urban areas. That technology must also contribute to making cities more sustainable and improving the quality of life for the people who live there.
That’s why a team of researchers from IMD in Switzerland and SUTD in Singapore—including myself—put together the Smart City Index. For the first time, we attempted to assess people’s perceptions of technology—as opposed to the quality of the technology itself—as a way to characterize the “smartness” of a city. We did this by conducting a massive survey among citizens of 102 cities to assess how favorably they viewed the technology made available to them.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90416413/every-city-wants-to-be-smart-not-all-of-them-are-succeeding
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