Smart Cities: The First Step is Governance
The concept of ‘smart cities’ is becoming more and more of a possibility in the eyes of many. The image of a ‘smart city’ tends to resemble something along the lines of a place full of sensors, cameras, big data analytics and control centres, the purpose of which are to make a city’s operations smoother and more efficient, while making life more convenient for its citizens. However, governance mechanisms should work to avoid the transformation of a smart city into a ‘black-box’: a reality in which its citizens are not given access to the data around them and subsequently lose control of it.
Think of a traffic jam, apart from the smart semaphores, control centres and data collection through cameras that a smart city would incorporate to tackle the problem, it would also study the mobility of people (rather than cars) in the traffic jam, suggest new or improved public transport in the region, better localisation of government offices or even the establishment of new working hours. That is the underlying concept behind a ‘humane smart city’, where the people are more important than the technology itself. It is this type of city which will provide the most benefits for its citizens and it’s precise governance which will allow for it to do so.
To plan and develop the establishment of more innovative and efficient smart cities, there should be new governance established aimed at taking care of all citizens’ interests. Several countries already have laws which enforce wider access to information and an ‘open data concept’, which adds the notion that the data collected through the smart city is only useful when it is free to use without constraints. In order to plan responsibly, every individual stakeholder in the city needs access to this public data. This can also be a way to tackle the taboo against the collection of private data so that people may utilise the full benefits of technology without worrying that tech giants and governments are stealing their personal information. It is increasingly clear that private interest may be a detriment to citizen’s freedom. A smart city packed with sensors trace a citizen’s every move. They risk dramatically changing expectations of privacy; therefore, data protection regulations must be one of the first things taken into account. This could be achieved through anonymizing datasets by using, for example, statistical methods that obfuscate identity or by limiting data collection in certain areas or situations.
Smart city concepts should consider new players which aim at providing new types of municipal services, based on algorithms, and ‘human behaviour’ rather than infrastructure. An example is the services provided by Amazon which connect physical and digital realms in many cities. Airbnb plays a huge role in the accommodation market yet owns no property. Uber is a leading company in the private transportation market yet owns no cars. Amazon is one of the biggest retailers yet owns no stores. Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs has a long-term plan to transform parts of Waterfront Toronto into a big smart city showcase, with changed in transportation and massive use of sensor information to plan and monitor public transportation. These global internet service providers pose challenges to areas of privacy, surveillance, and human rights that will shape the development of smart cities.
A way to implement this new form of governance could be through the establishment of multi-stakeholder processes. These aim to bring together all major stakeholders through a new form of communication and decision-making on particular issues whose views would be based on democratic principles of transparency and participation. Cities will need to be increasingly clear on the values they want to uphold and serve in installing digital devices throughout the city or establishing agreements with technology suppliers. This, again, can be done effectively through broadening the discussion around governance in order to present multiple views on technological, economic and social issues.
This governance is necessary in order to answer questions such as; who owns the data collected by the different services of a smart city? Who determines the rules by which different companies and public bodies get access to collected data? Would internet platforms that provide municipal services be open to third parties, including entrepreneurs and citizens, to draw and build on? and What technologies could allow multi-stakeholder governance bodies to monitor the results of their agreements?
Ellie Nikolova