Smart cities: how to build sustainable urban environments?

Meeting tomorrow’s urban challenges will need big shifts, but how can we get smarter, and what are the main concerns? A live discussion with a panel of experts sought to find the answers

The statistics speak for themselves. The world’s population is urbanising and expanding faster than ever. By 2050, well over half the planet’s estimated nine billion people will be living in cities. If we don’t “smarten” up our urban infrastructure, daily life could slowly ground to a halt.

So what can be done to encourage “smart city” developments? That question was at the centre of a live Q&A session, which was recently hosted online by the Guardian, in association with Barclays, Bird & Bird and Cisco.

Questions posted online and on Twitter were answered by a panel of six subject experts: Ronald Hendrikx, partner at law firm Bird & Bird; John Jones, from Barclays Specialist Finance team; Gareth Macnaughton, director of Innovation & Strategy Government at Cisco Systems; Usman Haque, director at Haque Design + Research; Peter Head, executive chair of the Ecological Sequestration Trust and chairman of the Institute for Sustainability; and Richard Miller, head of sustainability for the Technology Strategy Board.

To kickstart the debate, a participant posting on Twitter asked for a definition of smart cities. Peter Head suggested that smartness lies in tools for making good decisions, not necessarily in smart technology itself. Usman Haque was also cautious about attributing too much value to physical infrastructure. “I believe smartness arises in expanded human interactions and creativity”, he argued. So for him it’s more about “smart citizens”, than smart cities.

The Q&A session then considered why many urban planners look at the cost of investing in the latest technology and balk, and Gareth Macnaughton argued that a change of focus is needed. Forget mega-projects, he suggested. “Smaller agile partners need to be able to deliver the ‘smarts’.” It’s important to stay realistic, added Miller. No city is going to back an unproven SME or start-up; instead “imaginative integrators” are needed. That is, organisations and individuals that can make the links between small innovative players.

There are other clinchers to encourage smart city developments too, the Q&A was told. One is to crystallise the advantages up front. “It is hard to bring new ideas unless you can show their benefits in advance,” said Head. He proposed that independent “resource and economic modelling” could be the best means of building an “evidenced-based” case.

Another compelling driver is leadership, “plain and simple”, said Macnaughton. “We have technologies and innovative new building methods but often we lack the leadership to be able to bring together different management lines, budgets and concerns and enforce co-operation.”

The debate then turned to the question of “who will pay for all this?” Miller, noted that most city governments “are desperate to invest” but simply don’t have the money. So the question passes to the financial community. What are investors looking for?

He saw glimmers of hope in “impact investment”; namely, where risk is divided up between the pubic sector (which takes the higher risk parts) and the financial sector (which takes more conventional level risk).