Smart Cities
The city of the future is a combination of intelligent uses of modern
technologies and innovative systems , facilitating the management of specific functions of agglomerations
and the potential of institutions and companies as well as the citizens’ creativity and enthusiasm.
Creation of smart cities is a long-term process based upon a shared strategy taking into account the complex needs of the stakeholders. At the same time, being a smart city is about looking for a unique identity which allows cities to build up a competitive brand. In this market competition, the winners are cities with more effective tools for attracting top quality human capital, entrepreneurs, investors and innovators.
On a global scale, several thousand projects based on the smart idea have been brought into operation; their number tends to grow by 20% every year (CIT 2011). Some of them are limited to marketing while the smart element is used as a the communication backbone. In Europe, Amsterdam was a pioneer in this respect as a pilot city in a project aimed at developing the World Smart Capital concept for 2012–2013.
The European Union’s active policy further underpins the concept of smart cities: the European Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities and Communities as part of the European Commission is to support and promote smart solutions in the EU cities (with special emphasis placed on 2014-2020).
The ability to manage cities’ sustainable development in the spirit of “smart cities” will depend on cities’ competence in comprehensive planning, implementation and evaluation of operations in a coordinated way in the specific areas of being “smart”: quality of life, people, intelligent management, economy, the environment, transport and communication.
Characteristics and components of Smart City
SMART ECONOMY (Competetiveness)
- Innovative spirit
- Entrepreneurship
- Economic image & trademarks
- Productivity
- Flexibility of labour market
- Internationat embeddedness
- Ability to transform
SMART GOVERNANCE (Participation)
- Participation in decision-making
- Public and social services
- Transparent governance
- Political strategies & perspectives
SMART ENVIRONMENT (Natural resources)
- Attractivity of natural conditions
- Pollution
- Environmental protection
- Sustainable resource management
SMART PEOPLE (Social and Human Capital)
- Level of qualification
- Affinity to life long learning
- Social and ethnic plurality
- Flexibility
- Creativity
- Cosmopolitanism/Openmindedness
- Participation in public life
SMART MOBILITY (Transport and ICT)
- Local accessibility
- (Inter-)national accessibility
- Availability of ICT-infrastructure
- Sustainable, innovative and safe transport systems
SMART LIVING (Quality of life)
- Cultural facilities
- Health conditions
- Individual safety
- Housing quality
- Education facilities
- Touristic attractivity
- Social cohesion
Transforming a city into a smart city
Transforming a city into a smart city is accompanied by numerous challenges. It involves strategic reorientation of cities and placing a strong emphasis on the “smart” approach in cities’ strategies. This is why at the stage of devising the strategy, it is necessary to:
- Create an action plan taking into account a city’s resources, infrastructure and power supply needs as well as the interested parties’ needs
- Ensure that all the interested parties share the same vision
- Take advantage of the synergy accompanying cooperation of many organizations from various industries
- Take advantage of the IT and telecommunication infrastructure only when necessary (some problems can be solved without resorting to new technologies)
- Assure all the stakeholders that the change must occur on several levels: the local government, business and the local community
Areas of specialisation
- Programming place development based on the Smart City idea
- Consulting the tools and promotion solutions tapped to the Smart City idea
Our experience
- Cooperation in creating a tool to present in a simple way how local budgets are spent (www.nacoidamojepieniadze.pl)
- Publications and speeches at the most significant conferences on Smart Cities (Miasta Przyszłości – Co oznacza idea Smart City dla miejskich marketerów.pdf)
- Launching the EUROPEAN SMART CITY RESEARCH PROJECT (ESC) – an analytical tool to measure the level of “smartness” in European cities