Portraits of the World's Smart Cities

Zaragoza: Pioneering a Citizen-Centric Smart City Vision

Fifteen years ago, Zaragoza - the historic Spanish city situated between Madrid and Barcelona - pioneered a vision of a future digital district and knowledge-based society. Since then, the city has developed an impressive portfolio of smart city projects and new urban services. According to Daniel Sarasa, Urban Innovation Planner in Zaragoza and internationally recognized smart city innovator, one of Zaragoza's unique strengths is its culture of citizen involvement and participation. This culture has its roots in the reawakening of democracy. In the late 1970s, the city of Zaragoza (like other cities in Spain) looked back on thirty five years of dictatorship – and looked ahead to an uncertain future. During the years of dictatorship, Zaragoza had grown in population from approximately 235,000 to more than 500,000, but the civic infrastructure and public services needed to support this urban growth were inhibited by an autocratic national government which maintained severe austerity measures.

ICF Top 7 Intelligent Communities – Ipswich (Queensland, Australia)

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.

Ipswich, Australia - Following a Holistic Smart City Program

The city of Ipswich is young – that is to say, it has the youngest population on average in all of Queensland, Australia – and it is also growing faster than any other city in the state. Currently boasting around 200,000 inhabitants, its government projects that almost another three hundred thousand people will call the city home within the next twenty years, more than doubling its population and ensuring a need for an estimated 120,000 new employment opportunities. In preparation for this expansion, the Ipswich City Council created a twenty-year plan for the development of the city. Now in 2018, seven years later, the council has decided to extend its original plans by setting up a Smart City Program to direct the city’s growth. This kind of carefully guided development is possibly the reason it has been on the radar of the ICF since 2010, and is now in the running for Intelligent Community of the Year 2018.

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. This smart city portrait provides an overview on the smart city approach and intelligent solutions implemented in the Dutch City of Eindhoven. For its achievements, especially in regards to open innovation, the City of Eindhoven was named the "Intelligent Community of the Year 2011" by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF).

Eindhoven’s Smart City Strategy

Together with Manchester (UK) and Stavanger (Norway), Eindhoven is acting as a ‘Lighthouse City’ for the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Triangulum project,[1] seeking to drive smart city innovations globally by demonstrating real solutions that are smart, sustainable, and inclusive. The project places a focus on the areas of energy use and CO₂ emissions, open data and data infrastructure, sustainable and affordable housing, and the proliferation of joint-ownership in projects, engaging and empowering the citizens to take greater roles in the ongoing development of their living and working spaces.

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. This smart city portrait provides an overview on the smart city strategy and intelligent solutions implemented in the City and nation-state of Singapore.

Singapore’s Smart Nation Strategy

Cities all over the world are applying new technologies to solve their problems and become smarter. Singapore’s take on technology, as endorsed by bee smart city,[1] is that it should not be an end in itself – it should be made to serve the people, who should be firmly at the center of the smart city concept.

Singapore can be regarded as one of the 'early movers' in the smart city movement, being recognized as the first "Intelligent Community of the Year" by the Intelligent Community Forum in 1999.[2] In recent years, the city was top-ranked as one of the world's smartest cities. Tying with Chicago and slipping in only a single point behind Vienna,[3] Singapore took second place on Roland Berger’s recent Smart City Index.[4] It was also named ‘Global Smart City – 2016’ by Juniper Research, for its "fixed and cellular broadband services, city apps and strong open data policy”.[5]

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. This smart city portrait provides an overview on the smart city strategy and intelligent solutions implemented in the City of Amsterdam.

Amsterdam, the Dutch capital city, is one of the early adopters of smart city strategies in Europe, following their strategic approach to become smarter since 2008. Today, the city is one of the leading smart cities in Europe.

Amsterdam's Smart City Approach

Amsterdam, the Dutch capital city, was one of the early adopters of the smart city concept in Europe. Following a holistic strategy to become smarter that launched in 2009, it has become one of the leading smart cities in Europe and, in 2016, was named the European Capital of Innovation by the European Commission.

Holistic approaches modelled on a quadruple helix concept – government, businesses, universities & research institutions, and citizens – are key to the creation of a truly smart city. Amsterdam realized this fact early on, adopting a bottom-up methodology based on smart growth, startups, social inclusion and quality of life.[1] The city’s approach covers all of the relevant fields of action for a municipality, which can be summarized by the indicators smart economy, smart environment, smart government, smart living, smart mobility and smart people.

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. This smart city portrait provides an overview on the smart city strategy and intelligent solutions implemented in the City of Toronto.

Toronto, Canada's largest city, has long been working on becoming smarter, being awarded the "Intelligent Community of the Year" by the Intelligent Community Forum in 2014. In 2015 the city made a big leap through a partnership with CityZenith. With a citizen-centric approach and the recently announced partnership with Google's Sidewalk Labs, the city now aspires to take another big leap forward to become one of the smartest North American cities.

Toronto’s Smart City Strategy

Strong collaborations are a good foundation for any successful smart city strategy, and Toronto’s smart city approach has certainly led it to form some powerful relationships.

Waterfront Toronto is the body in charge of revitalizing the city’s waterfront real estate, which has long boasted little infrastructure despite its apparently prime location in Canada’s largest city. It has now partnered with Sidewalk Labs, tasking the Google-spawned startup company with the re-development and re-envisioning of Toronto’s Quayside area as a testbed for truly smart living, creating a unique smart city solutions ecosystem.