Anthony Townsend on the Elusive Wisdom of Smart Cities

Thank you to Anthony Townsend for leading last week’s brown bag discussion.

New York City’s adaptive traffic signal controls use sensors from EZPass readers, microwaves, and video cameras to allow the Department of Transportation to remotely control traffic signals and adjust signals based on traffic flow. Phase 1 of the project saw an improvement of 10 percent in travel times. This is just one an example of how digital technology can be used to address a city’s problems.

In his new book, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, Townsend explores the complexity that surrounds the use of digital technologies to ameliorate urban problems.

Digital technologies are being incorporated into the thread of city-life through both top-down and bottom-up approaches. IBM and other major corporations are trying to sell their services to local governments in a top-down approach. On the other hand, startups and civic hackers are creating products that organically take hold within a city and change how the city’s residents interact with their surroundings. For example, Portland has about 50 different apps that residents can use to understand the local transportation network. NGOs and universities are also stakeholders in the trend towards smarter cities, with local governments serving as the “master integrator”.  

Yet despite visions of cities that can be controlled through holograms with the flick of a finger, and an estimated $100 billion market opportunity, the market for smart cities is still fragmented and immature. There are over 570,000 local governments in the world, each with different needs and priorities for digital technology.

One innovation attempting to bridge the gap between ideas and clients is Citymart.  This website is trying to build an Amazon-like platform for small businesses to showcase their solutions for a variety of different urban problems, with services targeted towards governments.  This broadens the reach of unique innovations that governments may not have otherwise discovered.

As technological solutions become increasingly common, there is heightened tension between what Townsend calls “technocratic master planned utopias” and “organic, participatory evolution.” Governments will need to contend with this tension in their decisions regarding what types of digital technology to incorporate into their cities.

Townsend’s list of “new civics for smart cities” may help governments conceptualize how their smart city should come together:

1. Opt in to Smart

2. Roll Your Own Network

3.Build a Web, Not an Operating System

4. Extend Public Ownership

5. Model Transparently

6. Fail Gracefully

7. Build Locally, Trade Globally

8. Cross-Train Designers

9. Think Long-Term in Real Time

10. Crowdsource with Care

11. Connect Everyone

12. Do Sound Urban Science

13. Slow Data

You can find a Townsend’s full presentation here.