Smart City thinking is increasingly prevalent within political and commercial visions for the urban future;

responding to pressures and challenges presented by growing city populations, sustainability challenges

and advances in digital technology.

The Smart City an Introduction

Concept

The Smart City in concept casts urban performance as a function of the complex interplay between systems

composed of infrastructures, capital, assets, behaviours, and cultures; spanning the economic, social,

technological, political, and environmental. In this context, the city is viewed as a ‘system of systems’ with the

Smart City having realised benefits through integration and coherence amongst its systems1.

Examples of work seeking to develop a framework for inquiry illuminate dimensions of a Smart City model; the

European Smart Cities project proposes six1:

Practice

In moving from observation and theory to strategic application, the Smart City concept begins to fragment; arguably

as a consequence of the scope and complexity of forming a Smart City Masterplan. In practice, pursuit of the

qualities of the Smart City can be seen to drive a diverse landscape of strategic programmes in the public and private

sector. Examples of explicit usage of the Smart City concept include:

• City of Edinburgh Council Smart City vision – focussing on e-Government infrastructure to improve the performance

and delivery of public services whilst supporting access and participation4

• Amsterdam Smart City – business, government, community partnership pursuing a project portfolio focussed on

energy-saving in the form of ‘Sustainable-Work, Living, Mobility, and Public Spaces5

In each case, the role of novel infrastructure serving as a platform or facilitator of new beneficial behaviour is

apparent; a relationship forming the backbone of a number of Smart City programmes. ICT infrastructures

underpinned by a new generation of mobile technologies, connected devices, network platforms, and associated

software hold a central position in this landscape.

As an example, IBM’s Smarter Planet campaign forwards a vision of an ‘increasingly instrumented, inter-connected,

and intelligent urban system’; focussing on positive impacts of ICT on the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare,

power, transport, and the practice of commerce and work6.

In research published for the World Cities Summit 2010, a series of projects demonstrating ICT application to

improving city management are considered; featuring mobile information apps, smart meter enabled intelligent

energy systems, and monitoring grid facilitated adaptive traffic signalling7.

• Smart Economy > Innovation and Competitiveness

• Smart People > Creativity and Social Capital

• Smart Governance > Empowerment and Participation

• Smart Mobility > Transport and Infrastructure

• Smart Environment > Sustainability and Resources

• Smart Living > Quality of Life and Culture

This holistic nature of the Smart City framework connects it to a host of preceding ideas such as ‘Liveable

Communities’, ‘Sustainable Communities’ and the ‘Creative’, ‘Digital’, ‘Learning’, and ‘Intelligent’ City models.

Such frameworks fuel efforts to measure and rank the extent to which cities exhibit ‘Smart’ qualities. Ranking of

Cities in this way has a long lineage tracing back to the work of Florida. The European Smart Cities project applied

their framework of indicators to observe Smart Governance in Aarhus due to ‘transparency’ and Smart Economy

in Luxembourg due to ‘economic image’3.

Future Directions

A key emphasis in Smart City projects is leverage of multiple benefits from integrated technological solutions. The

Copenhagen Wheel from MIT presents an energy capture system to aid cycling that integrates real-time pollution and

traffic monitoring technology and provides information for the cycling population via a mobile app informing journey

planning8. The project presents a vision of projects facilitated by connected device infrastructure that bridge Smart

City dimensions; the Wheel associated with a range of outputs regarding transport, health, pollution, and congestion.

Thus, projects that fit together in pursuit of Smart City qualities may be considered:

• Development and utilisation of a networked ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ infrastructures

• Support of open information and stimulation of the knowledge economy

• Tracking and development of innovative and creative capacity

• Stimulation of enterprise and entrepreneurship for growth and competitiveness

• Development of participatory governance and enhanced democracy

• Attainment of environmental, social, and economic sustainability

Although not necessarily ‘new’, the Smart City perspective compels consideration of how such projects build together

and how they might be underpinned by a coherent platform of hard and soft infrastructures.

Technologies serving intelligence, monitoring, and feedback in development of strategy are a primary aspect of

such efforts. In this vein, works such as Corridor Manchester’s current move to develop a landscape of connected

monitoring devices supporting impact mapping and programme design across economic, social and environmental

domains presents a key feature of Smart City strategy9.

1 IBM Smart Cities: www.ibm.com/uk/cities

2 EuropeanSmartCities report: www.smart-cities.eu/download/smart_cities_final_report.pdf

3 EuropeanSmartCities website: www.smart-cities.eu

4 Edinburgh Smart City Action Plan: www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/council/ campaigns_and_projects/cec_smart_city_home_page

5 Amsterdam Smart City: www.amsterdamsmartcity.nl

6 IBM Smarter Planet campaign: www.ibm.com/uk/smarterplanet

7 Economist Intelligence Unit. 2010. ‘ICT for City Management’. Sponsored by Siemens, published in conjunction with the World Cities Summit 2010

8 Copenhagen Wheel: http://senseable.mit.edu/copenhagenwheel/index.html

9 Corridor Manchester: www.corridormanchester.com

Wood Holmes is a strategy and innovation consultancy, with offices in London, Manchester, Newcastle

and Singapore. We assist a wide range of clients address complex problems.

Manchester office82 King StreetManchesterM2 4WQ. UK

t. +44 (0)161 870 2441manchester@woodholmes.co.uk

Singapore office1 Fullerton Road #02-01One FullertonSingapore 049213Singapore

t. +65 6408 3800contact@woodholmes.sg

Newcastle officeFloor 17Cale Cross House156 Pilgrim StreetNewcastle upon TyneNE1 6SU. UK

t. +44 (0) 191 2112999f. +44 (0)191 2603939newcastle@woodholmes.co.uk

London officeHamilton HouseMabledon PlaceBloomsburyLondonWC1H 9BB. UK

t. +44 (0)207 993 4785london@woodholmes.co.uk