Smarter Cities 2025
Building a Sustainable Business and Financing Plan
"The cities of the future - and the cities of the present that will be relevant in the future - will be smart. Full of sensors, data, and analysis that help the traffic flow, civic leaders lead, and citizens fully realize all the benefits of working and living in their city."
-Ben Pring, Managing Director, Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work
In today’s digital age, becoming a smart city is vital for attracting business, residents, tourists, and talent, and for ultimately fostering growth and prosperity. But the path to a smart city future is often unclear to urban leaders, who require a deeper grasp of the approaches that will drive the best results.
To provide cities with a more effective roadmap, Econsult Solutions through its former joint venture ESI ThoughtLab, teamed up with a coalition of organizations with urban and technology expertise to conduct ground-breaking research into the impact of smart city solutions on urban performance.
The 10 Pillars of Smart City Success
Our research identified 10 smart city pillars that work together to drive benefits to local stakeholders. While urban leaders will vary their approaches based on the issues their cities face, the most successful cities create roadmaps that build on foundational and tech-enabled pillars. As part of our research, we asked government leaders, citizens and businesses to give us their views on these 10 pillars for smart city success. This section shows their ranking of priorities on a scale of 0-4*.
*0 = not a priority, 4 = very high priority
The Path to a Smart City Future
The convergence of digitization, globalization, and demographic change is redefining the urban landscape and how people shop, work, travel and live.
By making their cities smarter—not just in using technology but in all that they do—government leaders hope to drive competitiveness and growth, while making massive social, business and environmental improvements. But without a clear playbook for the future, cities run the risk of falling behind their peers.
“Ensuring your city has a digital strategy in place is key for a successful transformation. To be effective, city leaders need to ask if their digital city strategy is design-driven, value-led, politically endorsed, and if it delivers a viable ecosystem.”
-Jen Hawes-Hewitt, Global Cities Lead, Accenture
Our Interactive eBook, White Paper, and Executive Summary
Smarter Cities 2025 Webinar: A Deeper Dive into Smart City Solutions
ESI ThoughtLab's team of economists conducted a webinar on the research findings from the Smarter Cities 2025 program on December 19, 2018.
Smart City Solutions: Applying today's innovation to make tomorrow's world smarter
Pennoni highlighted smart city innovations in the Winter 2018/19 issue of Perspective and leveraged much of the research developed during the Smarter Cities 2025 program.
Wanted: Cities with Smarts
Smart cities increase economic activity and livability for citizens and businesses, according to a recent study by ESI ThoughtLab...
10 Pillars of a Smart City
Research by ESI ThoughtLab, a think tank, and partners, found several British cities are leading the way in smart city adoption, and that data is king when it comes to global smart city innovation...
ESI ThoughtLab Launches Smarter Cities 2025 Program
Transforming a city for the better requires a plan, and the ESI ThoughtLab has set out to craft one that all urban leaders can utilize...
Can Rapidly Urbanizing Cities in Low and Moderate Income Countries Become Smarter?
A flurry of attention to the varied applications labeled “smart cities" is occurring with growing frequency....
Making Technology Work for People: A Playbook for Smart Cities
The convergence of digitization, globalization, and demographic change is redefining how people live, work and travel...
Smart City Market Impacts on Global GDP and Population Growth
According to a new study conducted by ESI ThoughtLab, the adoption of smart city technologies can raise GDP per capita by 21% and population growth by 13% over the next five years...
How Smart City Investment Can Unlock Economic Growth
ESI ThoughtLab’s benchmarking study of 136 cities also predicts that cities’ use of technologies such as blockchain, robotics and drones will skyrocket...
Smarter Infrastructure: Safer Cities Count on Efficient and Advanced Solutions
Smart city initiatives are growing across the globe, as leaders look to increase security and intelligence across metropolitan environments...
Special Thanks to our Sponsors and Partners
Smarter Cities 2025 was sponsored by a coalition of leading consulting firms and providers of smart city services, platforms, and products. Each organization is an expert in its own field. A group of distinguished research partners also provided invaluable insights and guidance throughout the research process. Their multidisciplinary perspectives ensured an insightful and balanced view of the issues that urban centers face as they strive to become smart cities.
We would like to thank our sponsors, research partners, and project management team for helping us create this watershed study.
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Research Partners & Project Advisors
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Our team is committed to creating visionary thought leadership and evidence-based decision support to keep organizations at the forefront of market change. for more information, please contact us.
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