Digital Master Planning: Can we bring Smart Cities back to Earth? was presented by Anthony Townsend, founder of Bits and Atoms, at the 2017 Gigabit City Summit.

1. Digital Master Planning
anthony townsend • kansas city • 1 aug 2017
Can We Bring Smart Cities Back to Earth?

2. Smart cities elude
clear definition…

3. …the effective integration of physical,
digital and human systems in the built
environment to deliver a sustainable,
prosperous and inclusive future for its
citizens.

4. …the effective integration of physical,
digital and human systems in the built
environment to deliver a sustainable,
prosperous and inclusive future for its
citizens.

5. [a city] whose citizens and
businesses and government are
well-connected and well-
informed.

6. [a city] whose citizens and
businesses and government are
well-connected and well-
informed.

7. [a city] whose stakeholders
are well-connected
and well-informed.

8. [c]ommunities where
government, business, and
citizens are using digital
technology to address timeless
urban problems.

9. [c]ommunities where
government, business, and
citizens are using digital
technology to address timeless
urban problems.

10. 10
the 1st law of smart cities:
computers > people
1990
1960 2010

11. Planning of smart cities has been pretty top-down.
AUTOCRATI
C CITY-
STATES
WELFARE
STATES
BUT NOW…

12. movement is spreading to the world’s great dysfunctio
INDIA
BRAZIL
(& LATIN AMERICA)
UNITED STATES

13. And a new strategic practice
is emerging - with potential
for broader participation.

14. Digital master plans show cities
are getting serious about getting smart.

15. We studied 8 plans published
between 2011 and 2015.
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
New York
Road Map for the
Digital City
Barcelona Smart
City Vision
The City of Chicago
Technology Plan
A Digital Masterplan
for Dublin
Smart London Plan
Hong Kong
Digital 21 Strategy
(update to 2008 plan)
Singapore
Infocomm 2025
San Francisco
Information &
Communication
Technology Plan

16. How we analyzed digital master plans
CONTENT PROCESS USE
WHAT’S IN THE PLANS?
HOW WERE THEY
MADE?
WHAT IS THE
APPROACH
TO IMPLEMENTATION?

17. Content WHATS IN THE PLANS?
0 17.5 35 52.5 70
San Francisco*
Dublin
New York
London
Chicago
Barcelona
Hong Kong
Singapore
Internet access
IT Skills
Open data
E-government
Citizen engagement
IT Infrastructure
IT Industry Promotion
Urban infrastructure
*San Francisco also includes 89 IT Infrastructure initiatives not shown.
# number of proposed initiatives by policy area

18. This was the first of the bunch. (Not
entirely true). It was really a
cheerleading plan that focused on
integrating the city’s social media
presence and celebrating its growing
tech sector.
It doesn’t say a word about
infrastructure beyond public WiFi
hotspots.
It is unique in that it was updated
annually for 3 years in a row. It laid
out a modest agenda, and then
documented its delivery.

19. Subsequent plans are getting more
strategic looking at long-term
infrastructure needs, workforce,
and inter-operability.
Chicago’s is the only one with a
vision for technology in public
space.
Hong Kong’s has a lot of economic
policy for the entrepôt city.
Dublin’s was the only one with a
robust evaluation framework, the
Digital Maturity Scorecard.

20. Common Elements among the plans
Most of these plans
had a single author
who initiated and
executed the entire
plan development.
STRONG
AUTHORSHIP
Typically, these plans were
initiated in the second half
of a mayor’s first term in
office. Bread and butter
issues came 1st.
2ND HALF PLAYS CELEBRATIONAL
A lot of these plans is
devoted to documenting
accomplishments and
ongoing work. That’s OK
because they are cutting
across silos.

21. Big Differences between the plans
The plans range in
outlook from a single
term to many
decades.
TIME
HORIZON
Only one of the plans made a
serious attempt at proposing a
tracking process. Most played
fast and loose with scoring
themselves. A growing number
are being updated.
EVALUATION AND
LEARNING
ROLE OF
STAKEHOLDERS
The plans all take a different
view of who gets a say, and who
is enlisted to put the plan’s
recommendations into action.

22. NEW YORK: private
consultations with some
powerful stakeholders.
POWER
BROKERS
Process HOW WERE THE PLANS MADE?
Since no one knows how to do it, and there are few statutory planning
requirements, cities invented planning processes on the fly.
1
CHICAGO: community
involvement, more public
process.
COMMUNIT
Y-DRIVEN2
LONDON: large steering
committee, public
hearings.
STEERING
COMMITTEE3
DUBLIN: highly open,
mostly online.
CROWDSOURCED4
SAN FRANCISCO: part
of an IT budget process.
ADMINSTRATIVE5

23. This was a consensus-building
plan for a city with a very weak
mayor. It was trying to create a
shared vision and principles.
Mostly, the plan re-packaged
existing initiatives but also
identified a few future projects.
Most of the value was in the
network-building.

24. Arup, a global architecture, engineering and
design consultancy developed this map as part of
its contribution to the Smart London Board.

25. Implementation Who does it and how?
It’s pretty clear no one wants to be on the hook for these things.
That’s a big problem.
1 32
SINGLE AGENCY DEVOLVE
TO NGO
DELEGATE
TO STAKEHOLDERS

26. The Smart Chicago Collaborative
has carried forward the plan’s
initiatives through a variety of civic
engagement platforms.
The organization has facilitated
neighborhood-specific variants of
the master plan.
They even have a corps of citizens
who are paid to test civic apps!

27. What’s to come?
Global
spread
Small cities,
too
IoT PPP RFPs
masquerading as
planning process?

28. What’s to come?