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Smart Cities ...
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... why they’re not working for us yet
Dr Rick Robinson FBCS CITP FRSA AoU
IT Director, Smart Data and Technology
Founder and Chair, Birmingham Smart City Alliance
rick.robinson@amey.co.uk http://theurbantechnologist.com @dr_rick
Smart Data & Technology

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Smart cities, communities, services and infrastructure
command attention because we face fundamental challenges
from inequality, global population growth and economic
competition, and climate change.
“Lives on the Line” shows a difference of 21 years in life expectancy at birth today between the poorest and richest areas of
London. This inequality is repeated in all of the UK’s major cities, and is a measure of our failure so far to deliver public
services and infrastructure that give everyone an equal opportunity for a happy, healthy, successful life. This challenge is
likely to get harder to address in future as ageing populations in Western economies threaten the funding of public services;
as global development creates stronger competition for jobs and economic activity; and as population growth and climate
change create increased competition for resources.
http://life.mappinglondon.co.uk/

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The proliferation of data from a multitude of sources offers the
opportunity for detailed insights into our needs and behaviour
that were previously unimaginable. (See video at https://vimeo.com/62289901)

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That data can be used to manage cities more effectively and
efficiently …

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… but “smart” should be about people, behaviour and
outcomes; infrastructure, technology and management are
enablers, not objectives.

6.
“Smart” ideas command attention because we see the
potential for technology to enable fundamentally new ways to
deliver services more effectively at lower cost; and for
communities to create services for themselves.
Traditional hotel chain
• Founded in 1919
• Over 680,000 rooms in 91 countries
(2015)
• Over 310,000 employees and franchise
employees (2015)
• Market capitalisation $29.6B (2015)
1997 2003 2006 2006 2007
Online peer-to-peer market for
temporary accommodation
• Founded in 2008
• Over 800,000 rooms in 192 countries
(2015)
• 600 employees (2013)
• Estimated value $13B (2014)

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As a consequence we have created visions for a sustainable,
vibrant future enabled by technology …
… but most of these visions are aspirations: they have not been turned
into policies, or into budgeted projects and programmes …

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… and the vast majority of investments in smart technology are
made in order to create private sector profits; other than the
need to meet consumer demands, they are largely indifferent to
wider public sector and community objectives.
“Never mind the “Sharing Economy”: here’s “Platform Capitalism””, Sebastian Olma, Institute of Network
Cultures, October 2014
http://networkcultures.org/mycreativity/2014/10/16/never-mind-the-sharing-economy-heres-platform-capitalism/

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In the 20th Century, cities failed if they failed to develop their
economies to take account of developments in technology. The
evidence is worrying that we are failing again now …
“The Second Machine Age”, by Andrew McAfee and Erik
Brynjolfsson, summarised in
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2014-
06-04/new-world-order
Throughout the 20th Century UK cities that
did not adapt their economies to new
technology lost jobs, employers, residents
and investment.
“Cities Outook 1901”, Centre for Cities:
http://www.centreforcities.org/publication/cities-outlook-1901/
Since the 1980s as computers spread into
homes and businesses, growth in GDP has
not created growth in US household wealth.
New wealth is primarily being captured by
the owners of “platform businesses” such
as Amazon, Apple, Uber and Airbnb.

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“Private investment shapes cities, but social ideas (and
laws) shape private investment. First comes the image
of what we want, then the machinery is adapted to turn
out that image.
The financial machinery has been adjusted to create
anti-city images because, and only because, we as a
society thought this would be good for us.
If and when we think that lively, diversified city, capable
of continual, close- grained improvement and change,
is desirable, then we will adjust the financial machinery
to get that.”
Jane Jacobs, the Death and Life of Great American
Cities, 1961
We need to shape the machinery of our economy to create the
future cities and communities we want to live in.

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http://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/smart-cities/Smart-Cities-Standards-and-Publication/PD-
8101-smart-cities-planning-guidelines/http://www.sheffieldsmartlab.co.uk/
http://www.amey.co.uk/media/local-news/2015/december/heineken-project/
https://birminghamsmartcityalliance.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/our-first-annual-report-the-
birmingham-smart-city-alliance-2013-2015/
Demand outcomes, innovation and local investment
from service providers
Create local collaborations to help social enterprise to
scale-up
Focus local support for enterprise and entrepreneurship
on local priorities, challenges and opportunities
Demand outcomes, innovation and local investment
from developers
Four approaches to local action:
Procurement, planning, social enterprise and investment

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Images and concept from Kelvin Campbell’s “Smart Urbanism”
movement:
http://www.smarturbanism.org.uk/
Massive / Small: the emerging ideas of “Smart Urbanism”
provide policies, principles and toolkits to encourage and
support “massive” amounts of “small-scale” innovation?
Creating the conditions for success:
What are the characteristics of cities that give rise to
Massive/Small innovation?
https://theurbantechnologist.com/2013/06/17/how
-to-build-a-smarter-city-23-design-principles-for-
digital-urbanism/

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 Promote the re-use, re-cycling, up-cycling
and sharing of assets?
 Improve the equality of access to assets
and resources?
 Reward labour for the value of the human
experience that it creates?
 Promote local transactions that can be
carried out using human-powered
transport – walking and cycling; and that
create sustainable social capital?
 Are consistent with dense, walkable urban
environments?
 Emphasise the relationship between long-
term organisational profitability and
viability and long-term community stability
and vitality?
 Encapsulate protocols and behaviours that
are co-designed and governed by all
participants?
 Can prove that their algorithms are not
based on explicitly or implicitly biased
data?
Einor Ostrom, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics “for
her analysis of economic governance, especially the
commons“.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-
sciences/laureates/2009/ostrom-lecture.html
The continuation of Ostrom’s work by David Sloan Williams
https://jasoncollins.org/2013/09/11/design-principles-efficacy-
groups/
On the presence of bias in big data:
https://medium.com/@mrtz/how-big-data-is-unfair-
9aa544d739de#.gr3gza36w
Creating the conditions for success:
What are the characteristics of a “platform business” that is
consistent with the objectives of cities and communities?

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Smart Data & Technology
• The goal of Smart Cities is to invest in technology in order to create economic,
social and environmental improvements. That is an imperative economic and
political challenge, not a technology trend.
• The vast majority of Smart City initiatives to date are pilot projects
funded by research and innovation grants. There are very, very few
sustainable, repeatable solutions yet.
• The “bottom up” innovation that individuals, communities and businesses carry
out with technology every day is a vital component of Smart Cities, but it is not
enough on its own: creating change on an urban scale requires top-down
leadership, policies and investment.
• Private sector investment will not deliver social, economic or environmental
outcomes unless it is incentivised to do so.
• Tools are available for local governments to build Smart Cities: procurement
policies, planning and development frameworks, social and entrepreneurial
investment funds and support services.
The idea of a “Smart City” (or town, or region, or community)
is 20 years old; but it has so far achieved very little.

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Success factors and successful styles for carrying out Smart
Cities programmes
• Use the tools and investments that are available now
• Focus on investment and delivery by using policy tools to demand that existing
spending and investment streams deliver the vision
• Adopt and adapt the ideas of Smart Urbanism and the economics of the
commons
• Demonstrate Four “C”s: Commitment, Collaboration, Consistency,
Community
• Commitment and engagement of the most senior local government leaders
• A collaborative, empowered regional stakeholder forum
• A clear, consistent, specific local vision
• Community engagement
• Adopt the behaviour of “Translational Leaders”
• Defined by Robert Zolli in “Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back”
• Leaders who create innovative growth and resilient communities by combining
the resources of formal large-scale institutions with the resourcefulness and
informality of local people, communities and businesses
http://www.fastcompany.com/1842367/tropical-tale-tourists-networks-and-new-kind-leadership

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Cover with focus picture 1 Cover with focus picture 2 Cover with focus picture 3
rick.robinson@amey.co.uk http://theurbantechnologist.com @dr_rick
Smart Data & Technology
Thankyou
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Dr Rick Robinson FBCS CITP FRSA AoU
IT Director, Smart Data and Technology
Founder and Chair, Birmingham Smart City Alliance