A new report assesses the smart city performance of local government areas representing 85% of Australia’s population. NSW leads the way, and all the leading performers are in the major cities.
A Townsville City Deal was signed two years ago and the city is now one of Queensland’s ten leaders on smart city performance.
Lukas Coch/AAP
How smart are our cities now? In Queensland, a study of all 78 local government areas reveals major gaps between the ten leading the way in becoming smart cities and the rest of the state.
A smart city is usually one connected and managed through computing — sensors, data analytics and other information and communications technology.
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As cities become ‘smarter’, they need more and more objects fitted with technology. We need to think about designing these objects to accommodate computers, which often break down and create e-waste.
Federal and state government representatives descended on Geelong when a memorandum of understanding for the latest City Deal was signed on January 17.
Ellen Smith/AAP
With the emerging emphasis on regional City Deals and Smart Cities funding, perhaps Australia is beginning to find its way to a national cities policy, rather than just a big cities policy.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff launch Sidewalk Toronto, a high-tech urban development project.
Mark Blinch/Reuters
Toronto has entered a joint venture with a Google sister company to create a high-tech urban development area. The goal is to ‘re-imagine cities from the internet up’ – Google’s internet, of course.
Among Australia’s eight largest regional cities, Hobart is very inwardly connected.
AAP/Dave Hunt
Knowing a city’s professional network ratio helps to understand how connected its inhabitants are to other markets, customers and ideas. All support innovation, adaptation and city growth.
Geelong’s relatively high creative industries score, coupled with a robust rate of business entries, provides a solid foundation for steady growth.
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Regional cities can be as effective at generating jobs and growth as their big five metro cousins. But they must identify and build on their strengths to be investment-ready.
Central Queensland University and James Cook University are part of the Townsville City Deal signed by three tiers of government in December 2016.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Universities can lead the way in creating opportunities for the economic development of regional cities and outer metropolitan areas under new City Deals.
Aspiring ‘smart cities’ like Barcelona have worked to build their profile – it recently hosted the Smart City Expo World Congress – but Australia may benefit from not having rushed in.
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Like a 5D movie on speed, the city today defies conventional boundaries. This raises new questions about what we imagine to be ‘the city’ – and how we as a democratic community can shape it.
Transit value capture is used in Hong Kong.
Flickr/Kin
The 2016 articulation of an urban agenda assumes building more highways, railways and trams will produce better, more productive cities that somehow give everyone a job.
Much of the ‘smart cities’ rhetoric is dominated by the economic, with little reference to the natural world and its plight.
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The rhetoric of ‘smart cities’ is dominated by the economic, with little reference to the natural world and its plight. Truly smart and resilient cities need to be more in tune with the planet.
Rather than create regulatory frameworks that allow innovations to thrive, governments have created hurdles to transformative applications like Uber or Airbnb.
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Carlo Ratti, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Governments too often hinder change, when instead they should aim to foster an organic innovation ecosystem. This is more about bottom-up innovation than top-down schemas.
Brisbane aspires to be a truly smart and connected city.
Marcus Foth
Australia’s Smart Cities Plan largely conveys a limited role for people: they live, work and consume. This neglects the rich body of work calling for better human engagement in smart cities.
Professor of Social Epidemiology, Principal Research Fellow in Social Epidemiology and Director of the Centre for Research Excellence in Healthy Housing in Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne