21st century came along with an explosion of new ideas and strong technical solutions for Smart Technologies. Large amounts of data started to be generated. Unfortunately, those smart technologies were not accompanied by the proper communication links or standards that could facilitate interactions between actors, technologies and systems.
There was an imperative need for Management, Data and Technical standards. Without these standards, it would be difficult to reproduce all those good technical solutions and cities will remain a set of malformed puzzles.
In 2012, ISO formed the TC 268/SC 1 which focused on Smart Community Infrastructures. They published
ISO/TR 37150:2014 which provides a review of existing activities relevant to metrics for Smart Community Infrastructures. In addition, they published
ISO 37120:2014 which defines and establishes methodologies for a set of indicators to steer and measure the performance of city services and quality of life.
Several other organizations have been trying to conduct efforts to create a practical framework for Smart Cities, the one I like most is the
BSI Smart City Framework which mainly puts the Citizen at the center.
City Attractiveness
Each city has different needs and requirements. There is not a unique solution or approach for a Smart City. Diverse urban growth patterns with different levels of economic development are across regions and Countries. Nevertheless, all cities trying to become a Smart City should be built on three sustainability pillars:
It is within these pillars where we can identify the elements that define the attractiveness of a City.
Attractiveness from the Social perspective.
A city’s attractiveness for people, business and capital is closely related to the quality of life, business opportunities and security and stability, which are guaranteed by social inclusiveness.
Attractiveness from the Economic perspective.
Population growth, the quality of private undertakings, the attractiveness as in investment location as well as the ability of city authorities to tax the citizens for public services, all depend of the city’s ability to attract business and capital.
Attractiveness from the Economic perspective.
Environmental concerns are growing in cities. Three pressures arise. The first is on resource limitations, such as water scarcity and quality, or fuel requirements. The second is on Quality of life and Health. Not only are citizens and authorities more environmentally aware, but the economic implications of pollution can be serious, due to the impact on health and the attractiveness for businesses to operate from the city. The third is risk management and resilience to environmental shocks (such as heat waves and flooding caused by climate change).
SAP Future Cities DNA aligned to Frameworks
As we can see below, SAP Future Cities Strategy includes all the elements we have been reviewing. Different roles (Personas): People, Governments, Businesses, Academia, Infrastructure and Assets even to Natural Resources and Networks.
The strategic elements that are applicable to any city are: the vision and mission, the Key Performance Indicators, the action plans and previous and ongoing successes.
We have aligned our measurement to those defined by the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals: Resilience, Safety, Sustainability and Inclusiveness.