Portraits of the World's Smart Cities

Certain smart cities around the world are leading by example. By examining the solutions that are delivering the highest impact, these best practices can be more widely adopted to replicate their success.

Palo Alto’s Smart City Strategy

A comparatively small American city in the very center of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto has thrown itself into the smart city scene, founding a number of tech-driven projects to solve the problems of its 67,000 citizens.^[1] The first challenge to overcome, however, is its size: Palo Alto will need to pioneer smart resource management in order to fund the deployment of its smart city initiatives and the larger-scale implementation of any successful solutions.

Certain smart cities around the world are leading by example. By examining the strategies that are delivering the highest impact, these best practices can be more widely adopted to replicate their success.

This city portrait is in two parts. This first part describes the ambitious plans of the Alba Iulia City Hall as it uses tourism and strong partnerships to transform Alba Iulia into Romania’s first smart city. The second part takes a closer look at some of the more than 100 smart city solutions being implemented there.

Welcome to Alba Iulia, the First Smart City in Romania

In Alba County, Transylvania, nestles a small city with a big plan. Alba Iulia, the principality’s earlier capital and a symbol of the Great Union of Romania a hundred years ago, has set its sights on becoming Romania’s first smart city. Its pilot project, officially launched in December 2016, is set for being showcased in 2018 – with the occasion of the Romanian Centennial year – and continuing in 2019 also.^[1]

ICF Top 7 Intelligent Communities – Tainan City (Taiwan)

The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) releases an annual selection of seven different communities which it considers to have achieved a certain level of intelligence in the way they respond to the challenges of globalization and urbanization or, as the ICF prefers to call it, the Broadband Economy.[1] The selection of communities for 2018 was released in February, and can be found listed on the bee smart city website.[2] The Intelligent Community of the Year was chosen from among the Top 7 and announced at the ICF Global Summit in June.

Intelligent Community Tainan City, Taiwan

Taiwan’s oldest city dates back to 1590,[3] when the area of what is now known as Tainan City was first settled by the Chinese. After being retaken from Dutch settlers in 1662, it became the seat of government and remained Taiwan’s capital until 1885. Today, it is still a major political, economic and cultural center for the country.[4] But while Tainan City celebrates its rich past, it is also looking forward, investing in the future of its roughly 1.9 million citizens by placing a strong emphasis on their quality of life and their ability to participate directly in their city’s development. Like Chiayi City to its north,[5] Tainan City, Taiwan, has been recognized as one of the most intelligent communities of 2018. Building its sustainable industries, offering free digital education, and demonstrating a strongly citizen-centric focus are what is putting it on the smart city map.