Smart cities and the fancy chatter
– Sujith Nair (CEO & Co-Founder, FIDE)
The “100 smart cities” announcement by the new government in India has made many stop what they are doing and turned them into Smart City experts overnight. It continues to capture the imagination of many.
From the little I could read on what’s available on the topic, I see that the concept of Smart City lacks a common form, method, context and vision in the minds of many. Some believe smart city can be built in a lab; consultants (to my brethren, am guilty as charged!) believe they can draw a ‘framework’ that can ‘fit to context’ and find a success recipe through ‘lessons derived’ from other smart cities; while urban planners believe it’s the digital guys spoiling their CDP party.
Among so much chatter, myths and myth-busters on smart city, it is difficult to see where we can possibly start defining what smart city means.
Let me go with a perspective of simply seeing a city as a complex mix of concerns, that of people living in it. A city means different things for different people, all living within the same spatial borders that outline the city. So long as the socio-economic divide exists, so will the variety of concerns. There are voices that I can hear saying “My Bengaluru versus theirs!” right from the economic downtrodden to the privileged; from the early settlers to the new migrants.
However, the question that nobody seems to be asking is, “For whom are we making the city smarter?”
The well-to-do may think a smart city should have wider roads so that they can drive bigger cars and have more ‘intelligent’ parking spaces in crowded places that are made visible on mobile apps. But will they ever agree to a smart city where everyone uses more common ‘public transport’? Common but better. Can a city be made “equally” smart for everyone?
I am curious to know if any ‘smart’ city has ever reduced (or even maintained) the cost of living in a city. Isn’t that a barometer too for smartness? Smart cities that offer relative ease of living to privileged few, on the contrary, can add premium to already surging real-estate prices in cities. Will affordable housing then become the first victim of cities going ‘smart’? Similarly, will it make access to “better opportunities” that much more difficult for the less privileged? Maybe it’s time for even the economists to jump into the smart-city bandwagon and I wish they prove me wrong.
If these views sounded socialistic and ‘anti-development’, I am but only translating the fashionable view of ‘smart city’ into seeing things differently – to see the opportunity that exists for making things actually smart.
Technology is often a leveller when facing an economic divide. But too much tech in itself is becoming a ‘thing’ of fashion. Let’s step outside of this tech space and see what technology-led applications can effectively be commoditized for the benefit of a larger city population. Further, if one were to see how technology disrupts itself and becomes more mainstream it might offer a sustainable way to address the concerns that ‘maketh a city’. It can create a variety of entrepreneurial opportunities, only if one is willing to look at it differently, than just selling smart parking sensors!
Not everyone can solve all problems of a city, tech Cos included. It requires tremendous coordination among policymakers, administrators, development agencies, tech Co and even residents. The last time we tried on a large well-rounded, time-bound plan, we had a last-minute chase to Delhi Commonwealth Games 2010 with massive cost overruns!
One way to approach this is to see if we can through technology and newer business models ‘enable solving’, than solving problems ourselves. It is difficult not to find an analogy in Aadhaar – a powerful enabler for public service delivery. Similarly, for cities, the context hence has to change from fixing problems to enabling opportunities, one step at a time. It doesn’t mean that we don’t fix broken roads, live with frequent power cuts and let the homeless continue being homeless. Instead, let’s turn these issues around and see if it means an opportunity for some including local governments and let ‘smart’ designs help them access this opportunity better, faster and make it more beneficial for people to whom it matters. What does this actually mean?
Watch this space for more.
PS: I am not a ‘smart city expert’. The views shared here are “inexpert” reflections from general readings on the topic, tying back to some of my recent experiences in urban space.
