How any city can be a smart city

Patricia Zullo, Senior Director, Spectrum Smart City Solutions, explains what smart cities are and how municipal leaders can embrace smart city initiatives to improve their communities for today and tomorrow.

What is a smart city, and what are the benefits of smart city initiatives?

The definition of a smart city is evolving, and each city is unique in how they define it. However, every smart city has three main components: a strong ubiquitous network, widely deployed sensors to collect data and the ability to analyze and leverage that data in real time.

Smart city initiatives have huge potential for improving a local economy. Data-driven initiatives that focus on enhancing services and the quality of life of its citizens are likely to help cities attract more tourists, businesses and residents — which in turn can have a potential benefit of increasing the tax base. Cities that embrace smart technologies today are differentiating themselves from other communities, and they’re potentially drawing new residents and employers in the long term.

Smart cities acquire enormous amounts of data, but what is the key to making it actionable?

Clearly just collecting data is not enough. City officials must know what they are trying to achieve with that data. If you want to provide real-time information on parking availability during a sporting event, for example, you should consider what data you need to achieve that goal. Roads may be closed, there may be detours or special on-street parking rules may be in effect. Data collected from sensors can provide real-time road conditions to accurately lead drivers to available parking.

What should municipalities do to ensure their networks can support smart city initiatives?

Every single smart city across the world uses a robust, ubiquitous network. However, that network almost always will need the flexibility to use different types of communication protocols based on the type of sensors deployed in different areas in the city. That's really where a network provider like Spectrum can assist. Spectrum can deliver the robust network connectivity and communication protocols for the most efficient data collection and transmission, regardless of what sensor technologies are deployed. Working with a network provider like Spectrum enables your city to concentrate on smart initiatives and your stakeholders while we focus on the network, protocols and data transmission.

How can government leaders ensure smart city initiatives are prepared for the unforeseen challenges and opportunities that lie ahead?

Smart cities are forward-looking, investigating where they will be or want to be in three to five years or even the next decade. But one challenge cities face is extracting meaningful insights from comprehensive data. Data often is collected and stored in unique formats by individual city departments. Smart cities embrace the value of analyzing and leveraging data, regardless of which department it’s stored in to make it easier to uncover insights and enact operational efficiencies.

How can municipal leaders get started on becoming a smart city?

It’s really important to start small: Pick a neighborhood, pick one or two use cases or initiatives that you want to embrace, establish an initial success story and then socialize the value and expand to other initiatives. I tell cities not to try to boil the ocean; but start with an initiative where residents will benefit from early milestones.

Most successful smart cities also have dedicated people or teams driving these initiatives. They might create nonprofit innovation districts that operate alongside cities. Or they might hire chief innovation officers — leaders who perform advanced planning to understand where the city wants to be in the future, and what technology will help it get there.

Finally, remember that smart cities are all about people, processes and technology. Network providers like Spectrum can certainly deliver technology and understand processes, but city leaders understand their people the best, and they should engage citizens early. Leaders must explain the benefits of smart city initiatives and why they are important to the growth and prosperity of the city. Engaging with the community to understand citizens’ priorities and concerns helps to solidify your path to smart city success.