Smart Cities - a solution?

In October the government announced a Smart Cities Forum and research - both corporate and academic - is busy exploring the potential of ICT to enhance the sustainability of urban areas. Some of this is about using data and information more effectively, some about better service delivery through integration and client-responsiveness. The aim, from a sustainability perspective, is to reduce resource use through these and other means, all reliant on an extended ICT infrastructure. It is a tempting idea. It seems to embody the idea of a better future in technology-led, almost science fiction terms. We (mainly) love the benefits of better connectivity that current ICT infrastructure offers. So what is the down-side?
Smart Cities are undoubtedly seen as a commercial opportunity - hence the significant investment in this idea by major companies such as Microsoft and Samsung. Nothing wrong in that - that is what these companies are supposed to do. But turning this idea into a public policy direction may mean prioritising commercial enterprise over other concerns. As ever with growth-dependent planning approaches, the aim is that market-led investment in Smart Cities will also provide for quality of life, wellbeing, equity, social inclusion and sustainability (see, for example, the remit for the current Government Foresight project on the Future of Cities - http://www.bis.gov.uk/foresight/our-work/projects/current-projects/future-of-cities. But sometimes it is not possible to have it all; will some communities be left behind by the investment in Smart Cities? Worse, will they be displaced or have to suffer the negative effects of such investment? ICT investment sounds so neutral and clean and safe. But without a very strong commitment to inclusion, sustainability and poverty-reduction, it may prove to be commercial business-as-usual rather than a really different future.

This blog is now taking a holiday until the New Year. Season's Greetings to all readers!

The book's argument

Well, the book has gone off to the publisher and is scheduled to be out in September. So what is its key argument? Planning has, I contend, become explicitly dependent on the promotion of growth and market-led urban development. This can work in some situations: it requires an underlying pressure of economic growth, effective regulation through the planning system (and a willingness on the part of planning authorities to negotiate for broader community benefits) and support by local communities. However, there are two major problems with such an overwhelming dependence on market-led development to deliver on public policy goals. First, as we are all too acutely aware at present, economic growth cannot be taken as a given. Even where national economic growth has returned to positive figures of several percentage points, there will always be areas that are suffering from a lack of demand and growth. What kind of planning should operate in these areas and during periods of general downturn? Second, there are significant concerns about the environmental and social consequences of growth-dependent planning. It is not clear that this approach will lead to resource efficiency and social equity. So a new agenda is proposed - drawing on the concept of just sustainability- and the book explores elements of an alternative planning approach. This encompasses different types of development model (including community-based development), ways of protecting and enhancing areas with low economic value as measured by rents and property prices (areas that often play an important function for lower-income communities) and community ownership and management of common assets. The final chapter discusses how these two approaches to planning can be combined and sets out in detail the reforms to the planning system that will be necessary to make space for planning beyond growth-dependence.