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6 In 10 Citizens Think Smart Equals Sustainable - And Are Ready To Move If Necessary

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Most citizens want their city to be smart and green, or they will move to one - a new report shows. Among 10,000 respondents, 58% believe smart cities are more sustainable and 42% are prepared to vote with their feet by leaving their town due to pollution concerns.

According to the Capgemini Research Institute, today’s city living is falling short of citizens’ increased expectations in the digital age. Smart cities, on the contrary, appear to provide a better quality of services - which is also why over a third of citizens are willing to pay more for some changes.

“A sustainable city is also a city where coming generations will want to live in, so besides environmental and mobility dimensions, security and economic aspects are important,” Pierre-Adrien Hanania, global offer leader for AI in the public sector at Capgemini, says. “Once you have the digital footprint of your city, like parking spots, traffic signals and air quality numbers, you can really see how to master and adjust these variables. In this case, citizens can create a better environment for themselves and the entire city through their choices and feedback data.”

The consulting company conducted a survey of more than 10,000 citizens and an executive survey of 310 city officials spread across 10 countries and 58 cities, including the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

“We are currently living a momentum for smart cities,” Hanania says. “We noticed that citizens feel a sort of digital frustration and are willing to live in a smart city with better initiatives in the fields of environment, security, and society in general.”

Capgemini noticed that some smart city initiatives have been helping city officials manage the COVID-19 pandemic, with 68% of city officials saying that digital initiatives like apps connecting people to healthcare facilities are helping them to manage the crisis. For instance, airport staff in Rome use smart helmets with augmented reality and thermal scanners to screen multiple visitors simultaneously while maintaining a safe distance.

“Smart cities have been doing better in terms of dealing COVID-19. We analyzed very different scenarios, but they all had in common was a proper control of the data playground, which made them able to tackle the pandemic.”

Serious challenges exist as population is predicted to massively grow in the next 30 years. In fact, respondents complained about their “digital frustration” and just one in 10 city officials said they are in the advanced stages of implementing a smart city vision.

Hanania says the three main issues are the lack of funding, the lack of blueprint and the lack of transversal roles for the doing of it. But the takeaways at the end of the report were also three. “We need to identify the city’s DNA, because some want to be greener, others safer, or more mobility-friendly, and that means each city should think about its main goals. We need collaborations, between start-ups, industry and the political arena. Finally, we need - like in any other fields of the public sector - data privacy and tech trust because the society must have clear ideas of how data is processed.”

For some cities, innovation is already in place, but building a concept is one thing and deploying it requires a further step. Meanwhile, almost 70% of city officials say that funding their budget is a major problem for them.

“When considering a smart city initiative, it is best to start with very small experimentations that can be tested before expanding and securing visibility and viability for funding,” Matthias Wieckmann, head of Digital Strategy for the City of Hamburg, said. “For city officials early in their journey, smaller solutions will help pave the way faster rather than starting with a big overall solution. It is also easier to find support and finance for projects this way.”

Sustainability is a key resource in this sense. The report shows that, while citizens find challenges such as pollution and lack of environmental initiatives a major concern and may leave as a result, they will be happy to pay for new smart projects.

As shown in a research conducted by María Teresa Nevado Gil, Luísa Carvalho and Inna Paiva, "the environment is a key factor for smart cities" in Europe.

"Thus, the regional and transnational location of cities is a relevant factor for the construction of dense and diversified relations of economic networks. It is also important to note that government administrations are key actors in the governance process. These should stimulate investment and focus on the development and implementation of policies that foster smart and sustainable development."

Their conclusion is that those cities located in the western region obtain better results as smart cities and the same applies to cities governed by women, which achieve the best results in the smart cities ranking, but political ideology does not seem to be determinant.

“In five years, we hope that technologies will be implemented and that the EU will find common guidance regarding the data culture,” Hanania adds.

“Through digitalization of the public service, you actually make the city bigger. Democratization is one of the results. It’s the case of people with disabilities who can, in a smart city, access services easily through more and various channels. Also, citizens sovereignly providing data to the local administration increase the efficiency of the system as a whole and embrace their role as smart citizens.”

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