Interview

A Q&A with our Summer 2023 Center for the Future of Cities Fellows

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As we head into summer, ESI welcomes two new teammates who will serve as ESI Center for the Future of Cities fellows. Samriddhi Khare currently attends the University of Pennsylvania and will be graduating in 2024. Samriddhi will receive her Master’s in City Planning and concentrations in smart cities and Technology. Patrick Darcy is a recent graduate from Temple University where he graduated with a BBA in Economics, and is currently working towards his MS in Financial Analysis with an anticipated graduation date of 2024.

We wanted to give our fellows an opportunity to express their goals for the fellowship, their thoughts on what interested them the most about Econsult Solutions and ESI Center for the Future of Cities, and where they hope to be once they graduate. Below is their commentary.

 

How did you hear about Econsult Solutions and ESI Center for the Future of Cities?

Samriddhi: “I heard about the ESI Center for the Future of Cities work from numerous Penn Students and faculty that were and continue to be a part of the team. Kendra Hills, my predecessor for the fellowship was my TA in my first semester!”

Patrick: “I initially heard about Econsult Solutions through a presentation by Rebecca DeJoseph at a meeting for the Temple Economics Society, a student professional organization, which I served on the Executive Board of. I heard about ESI’s Center for the Future of Cities through my behavioral economics professor, Donald Wargo, who let me know of the position and recommended I apply.”

What interested you in the fellowship position?

Patrick: “I was interested in the fellowship position because I felt it could supply an opportunity for me to highlight my skills and develop meaningful insights into how cities can effectively prepare for future challenges and opportunities.”

Samriddhi: “I was interested in studying the future of cities due to the dynamic nature of urban environments and the potential for transformative change. This fellowship offers an opportunity to explore innovative solutions that address emerging challenges such as rapid urbanization, technological advancements, and evolving social dynamics.”

What initially led you to learning more about urban planning and economics? What excites you about this line of work?

Samriddhi: “Prior to this line of work, I trained as an architect. I was inspired by the built environment and how influential cities were to our lives. I am excited by the potential current technology offers to improve citizens’ quality of life.”

Patrick: “I was initially drawn to urban planning and economics through academic research during my undergraduate experience. I am excited to research this topic because of its size, complexity, and opportunity to make a difference for the better.”

What is one topic you hope to learn more about this summer?

Patrick: “This summer I hope to learn more about urban planning and city development. They are both vital and intricate topics that will be integral to my research.”

Samriddhi: “I want to work and learn extensively about urban resilience. With the increasing frequency and intensity of challenges cities face, from climate change impacts to natural disasters and pandemics, urban areas are becoming more and more vulnerable to various shocks and stresses. By building resilience, cities can better prepare for and respond to these crises, minimizing their negative impacts on infrastructure, the economy, and the well-being of communities. Urban resilience is essential for safeguarding lives, reducing risks, and ensuring the long-term sustainability and adaptability of cities in the face of an uncertain and rapidly changing world.”

What city are you most interested in researching while at ESI?

Samriddhi: “Over the summer my research will span multiple cities, all of which will provide unique and interesting context. Coming from the National Capital Region of India (a group of cities surrounding New Delhi), I am excited to learn more about urban agglomerations. Agglomerations are inherently fascinating due to their complexity and the convergence of diverse cultures, economies, and lifestyles in one geographic space. I am researching the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan complex and learning a lot about the systems and networks between each city.”

Patrick: “I am most interested in researching Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a city with an incredible history, which is embedded in the story of America. I am excited to further explore its past and present, its challenges, as well as its opportunities for growth and improvement in the future.”

What do you see as the biggest challenge for cities to overcome in the next 3 – 5 years?

Patrick: “I see technological innovation and implementation as the biggest challenge for cities to overcome in the short-term future. Major technological advances have been developed to combat issues such as environmental threats, infrastructure, and economic inequality. Cities must leverage this technology to build a resilient and prosperous future.”

Samriddhi: “Cities face two critical challenges: escalating inequality and the pressing need to address climate crises and promote sustainability. Tackling these issues is pivotal for fostering inclusive urban environments that prioritize equity, resilience, and a sustainable future. By addressing inequality, cities can strive for economic justice and ensure that prosperity is shared by all residents. Simultaneously, integrating climate action and sustainability measures into urban planning and policies will pave the way for environmentally conscious cities, safeguarding future generations from the devastating impacts of climate change.”

What type of work do you hope to get into once you graduate?

Samriddhi: “I want to continue working towards making cities better and more equitable by incorporating holistic and accessible technology. By leveraging innovative solutions and inclusive practices, I want to help create urban environments that prioritize accessibility and sustainability, paving the way for a future where technology serves as a catalyst for change.”

Patrick: “After graduation, I hope to pursue economic research, investment management and financial analysis.”

 

ESI would like to welcome our newest fellows on this learning experience! We are excited to have them involved with our thought leadership initiative and look forward seeing their skills and understanding of urban issues grow. Best of luck on this fellowship!

 

Norah Serverson | [email protected]

Norah Serverson is a Marketing Assistant at Econsult Solutions Inc. (ESI) supporting the Business Development and Marketing Department. Ms. Serverson is currently a student at La Salle University studying Marketing and Communication.

Discussing the Future of Cities with Gina Lavery

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For this week’s Present Value post, we interviewed Gina Lavery, Senior Vice President and Principal of Econsult Solutions and the new head of ESI Center for the Future of Cities. In this conversation, she talks about the opportunities cities have related to transportation, technology advances, and more! Get to know Gina and more about ESI Center for the Future of Cities through the Q&A below.

As lead principal for ESI’s Economic Development practice, how has your experience prepared you to lead ESI Center for the Future of Cities? 

GL: As a leader in ESI’s economic development practice, I have seen first hand the consistent need for cities, neighborhoods, community-serving organizations, and major economic development projects to address problems in their communities with interdisciplinary and holistic solutions. For example, when we’re working with a local government on their economic development plan, we aren’t simply listing the standard economic development incentives or approaches that used to comprise a plan; in today’s economy we are developing forward-looking strategies with an eye to how technology and future economic shifts will influence a place’s competitiveness. That means we as a firm need to be aware of the economic issues and policy climate as we always have, but we also need to be in a position to understand and provide insights into how the latest urban economic research and technological developments will affect how places grow and thrive.

What are some priorities you are most excited to explore in the coming months?

GL: I’m excited for our team to build on the research and thought leadership we have already done around electric vehicle policy. The interplay of innovations in transportation bumping up against longstanding questions of equity and gentrification in our cities is exactly the type of problem-solving I want ESI Center for the Future of Cities to continue to explore. Another priority for the summer will be the exploration of the “smart” technology being used to enhance urban resilience in cities. That research will be undertaken in large part by our Center for the Future of Cities Fellows, who will be developing metrics for an index of mid-sized cities addressing resilience in their communities.

What are some of the biggest opportunities for cities planning for economic competitiveness?

GL: Figuring out how to leverage smart technology is a huge opportunity for cities to explore. I don’t mean simply jumping on the smart cities/tech adoption bandwagon, but rather identifying the tools that improve quality of life for residents and visitors. What we have seen since coming out of the pandemic is increased fluidity in where people want to live and work. For places to compete for residents and workers they need to improve the suite of services and amenities that they offer. The right smart technology can help cities enhance their value proposition by improving services, enhancing public spaces, and just generally improving the attractiveness of their communities.

How can others get involved?

GL: I would love to hear from other smart city practitioners, urban planners, and policy experts on the issues they see affecting our communities in the years to come. ESI’s Center for the Future of Cities is our opportunity to examine big, hard to define topics and figure out what we think they mean for our communities. Some other topics we hope to explore in 2023 include the implementation of broadband access in communities across the U.S. and how the internet of things is influencing the built environment. I encourage anyone interested in joining us in our research or in learning more about our research agenda to connect with us on social media or by contacting me directly at [email protected]

 

Gina Lavery is Senior Vice President and Principal of Econsult Solutions, Inc. (ESI). Ms. Lavery has led a range of projects for ESI, primarily focused on urban planning, real estate, transportation, higher education, and public policy—particularly where these areas intersect with economic development.

 

Mike Daly, Business Development Manager | [email protected]

Mike Daly is the Business Development Manager at Econsult Solutions, Inc. (ESI), where he supports the marketing and business development team. In addition to assisting with proposals, he is responsible for enhancing ESI’s brand and work through traditional and social media, content development for the web, and managing the ESI blog, Present Value.

An Interview with W. Wilson Goode, Jr.

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Last month, ESI President and Principal Lee Huang sat down with Senior Advisor and former Philadelphia City Councilperson W. Wilson Goode, Jr. to discuss the state of equity and inclusion in filling city contracts. As a member of city council, Goode, Jr. was instrumental in creating initiatives to boost participation from underrepresented groups in city affairs. Read their conversation below.

Can you describe your first experiences around MWDBE goal-setting while as a City Council Member?

Cities need to develop a serious approach to supporting an inclusive economy through government spending. During my first year in office, the City was considering legislation regarding the
build out of Lincoln Financial Field and Citizen’s Bank Park. As a freshman councilperson, I was able to weigh in on it, however at the time, there was no current disparity study to point to and assess utilization of Minority, Women, and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (MWDBEs). A study was initiated in 1998 but not yet completed, so the City’s stadium legislation couldn’t be based on any up to date and precise goals. Rather, it had to be driven more so by aspirational targets.

Eventually, Bill #030125 was signed into law in 2003, however a year later in 2004, the prevailing legal opinion was that council exceeded its authority to pass such legislation. After questioning during budget hearings and session hearings, the only way to implement the signed law was through a charter amendment, which I introduced – and it was approved by a supermajority of City Council and the voters through a ballot question.

In your view, how should DBE participation goals be leveraged to offer more opportunities for public contracting?

Disparity goals shouldn’t stop at billion-dollar investments like stadium builds, but instead they should be interwoven into all aspects of a city’s procurement and investment strategy. In Philadelphia, we have tended to look at large-scale projects to advance certain policies. From the stadiums to the convention center, to Mayor Kenney’s Rebuild initiative. In my opinion, I don’t believe these project-based efforts should be our primary way at addressing utilization matters, but they absolutely present a good opportunity to highlight the issues at hand.

What do you think city government levers are to affect availability? What can the City of Philadelphia  do, and what should it do to grow capacity?

The City can do more when it comes to prime contracting with minority and disadvantaged businesses. The City sets overall participation goals, however majority-owned contractors are essentially
left to make best faith efforts to create opportunities for diversity. So, on some level, the City does not make any immediate decision on the diversity of subcontractors selected to participate at the bidding level and which entities are in the running for public projects except through goal-setting.

How can we create an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem if lending discrimination persists, particularly for African Americans? And without access to race-based data for business lending, how do we remedy discrimination?

The City needs to set the tone in terms of policy and investment. How can we create an inclusive ecosystem if lending discrimination occurs on any level? Match-paired mystery shopping has been one way of examining this issue on a national level where we can show that Black business borrowers are treated differently. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition has performed research in several cities and found that on average, Black borrowers received more examination of their business and questions about family income, while also receiving fewer resources and information from lending institutions.

We can create a better entrepreneurial ecosystem – but I don’t believe that we can call it “inclusive” without directly addressing such racial discrimination. We know that there are higher home loan denial rates for African Americans in areas where there are lower self-employment rates, in such places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, and Memphis. Systematic and historic differences in access to capital to buy a home make it inevitably harder for those to start businesses. Typically, our homes are our biggest asset on our balance sheets.

The City’s standpoint should be to look at disparities in terms of business and other lending, but also making it a point to focus substantial time toward investing in solutions to those problems, such as loan guarantee funds, special programming with banking institutions, CDFIs, and strengthening housing subsidies as examples.

Increasing self-employment rates and building up capacity in Black and Brown communities is good for the City as a whole. If policy leaders want to grow the economy, this is a good way to do it. Access to capital is incredibly important. There’s also no way MWDBEs can scale and grow without private sector procurement opportunities. The public sector measuring its spend is good, but how do we broaden the conversation to springboard businesses into accessing private sector contracting to generate revenue and scale up.

 

W. Wilson Goode, Jr., Senior Advisor | [email protected]

W. Wilson Goode, Jr. is a public policy advisor who served as a Philadelphia City Councilman At-Large from 2000 to 2016. Mr. Goode graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and did Graduate Studies in Policy Design and Delivery at Harvard Kennedy School. When Mr. Goode served on the Philadelphia City Council, he was the primary sponsor of over 145 ordinances including: budget appropriations; revenue increase for public education; civil service preference for local residents; living wage and benefits standard for City-supported employees; labor peace requirement for City airport and City-supported hotels; annual economic disparity analyses; diversity goals for city contracting; fair lending plans and community reinvestment goals from depository banks; contract enforcement of economic diversity; reduction of the business gross receipts tax; business tax credits for job creation and investment in neighborhood economic development; as well as landmark legislation enacting the only campaign contribution limits for municipal elections in Pennsylvania.

 

Lee Huang, President & Principal | [email protected]

Lee Huang brings over 20 years of experience in economic development experience to ESI public, private, institutional, and not-for-profit clients. He leads consulting engagements in a wide range of fields, including higher education, economic inclusion, environmental sustainability, historic preservation, real estate, neighborhood economic development, non-profits, retail, state and local government, strategic planning, tax policy, and tourism/hospitality, and is a sought-after speaker on these and other topics.

 

Charting a Course for the Future of Cities

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It’s been a busy couple of weeks for people who follow the demographics and economics of cities. Last week, the US Census Bureau released the local area population counts from the 2020 decennial census, and a number of interesting facts jumped out from the data.

  • We grew slowly, as the US population grew at its slowest rate over the past decade since the Depression era of the 1930s.
  • We got older, as adults grew at a faster rate than children, highlighting longer life spans and declining fertility.
  • We got more diverse, as the share of white alone non-Hispanic population declined from 64% in 2010 to 58% in 2020. All other racial and ethnic groups grew in population over the past decade.
  • We clustered more in cities and metropolitan regions, as the population of US metro areas grew by 9% over the past decade, while the population of US micro areas grew by 1%. All ten of the largest cities in the US grew in population, with only Los Angeles and Chicago growing by less than 5%.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to buffet cities and communities all around the country. Spring optimism for recovery has turned into caution as the Delta variant and vaccination resistance has led to a resurgence in Covid cases and rapidly filling hospitals, particularly in cities and states with low vaccination rates. Plans for a return to something like normal after Labor Day are being reconsidered, as office reopening plans are being delayed or modified, conferences are being canceled or postponed, and vaccine and mask mandates are being put in place to reduce risk to employees and customers and allow for continuation of reopening plans.  While the pace of economic recovery has been stronger than expected, due in part to federal and state stimulus efforts and increased vaccination levels in many parts of the country, the impacts of the past 18 months are still being felt, as employers struggle to keep or find employees, supply chains have been disrupted, and tourism struggles to get back to its pre-pandemic boom times.

And in Washington, we are seeing Congress continuing to push forward on a two track path of “infrastructure” with the bi-partisan “hard” infrastructure bill providing over $550 billion in new spending for roads, bridges, transit, broadband and water/stormwater improvements, among others. The larger, $3.5 trillion Budget reconciliation bill, focuses on “human” infrastructure, such as child care, education, paid leave, health care and climate. Both of these bills have significant implications for cities and metropolitan regions, providing the potential for significant new investments

Given all of this change, and all of this activity, Econsult Solutions was excited to recently announce the launch of the ESI Center for the Future of Cities. This new research and thought leadership effort is designed to bring together ESI’s expertise in urban economics, policy and strategy to tackle the most important issues facing cities both locally and globally. Our thinking in creating this new focal point was that our experience and expertise in understanding and analyzing urban economies and working closely with city and business leaders on strategies and plans for sustainable futures gives us the ability to work on the most important issues facing cities.

The ESI Center for the Future of Cities will build on our work at the intersections of the public and private sectors, our extensive experience working closely with anchor institutions and local governments, and our core understanding of urban economics to provide our partners and clients with cutting edge research and analysis that can drive decisions and improve outcomes. What might that look like?

Let us know what you are interested in – we’d welcome the chance to have a conversation about your vision for the future of cities and how we can help support those efforts.

 

Steve Wray, Senior Vice President & Principal
[email protected]

Steve Wray is a Senior Vice President and Principal at ESI. In this role, Steve focuses on the development and implementation of programs and projects that support ESI’s vision and short- and long-term plans. He leads the work of the firm’s principals and senior staff in developing new partnerships, expanding and building on existing practice areas, and integrating the firm’s strengths in economic analysis and thought leadership. Mr. Wray joined ESI in 2017 as a Director and was promoted to Vice President, Strategic Initiatives in 2019.

Expert Views: Smart Cities Should Be Sustainable Too

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The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become an essential tool to overcome the devastating impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on cities. ESI ThoughtLab’s survey of 167 cities worldwide determined that 77% of cities have included each of the SDGs as a framework for their plans. With a public health crisis to solve despite exhausted budgets, cities will need to find sustainable solutions to recover.

ESI ThoughtLab’s thought leadership team asked experts participating in our Smart City Solutions for a Riskier World global study to offer their perspectives on how the SDGs can help rebuild cities after the pandemic shock and serve as a roadmap in their future development.

Our research shows a clear correlation between smart city maturity and progress on the SDGs. How do cities use smart innovation to achieve their sustainable development goals?

William Baver, Vice President, Smart Platform, NTT: NTT certainly believes there is a correlation between smart city maturity and progress on the SDGs. Smart solutions and data are powerful tools for cities to achieve their sustainability goals: these can in fact provide useful information not only to track progress on how they are doing against their goals and set new measurable KPIs, but also to really understand their starting points and therefore outline a precise and relevant strategy. Cities without data have a harder time starting and working towards clear objectives and consequently they often end up failing because they lack a strategy aligned with their situations and capabilities. By focusing on specific citizens’ needs, cities can easily get momentum and then enlarge the scope of their projects.

Jose Antonio Ondiviela, Microsoft Western Europe Industry Executive Smart Cities:  Smart innovation is the main driver to achieve the SDGs, not only for goal #11 (Sustainable Cities) but also for the rest. Technology plays a crucial role in achieving sustainable cities and communities, as it is the key enabler for energy, water, air, traffic, buildings and processes to work efficiency and in alignment with expected goals.

Andrew Caruso, Director, Urban Solutions, Hatch: Technology enables SDG progress because it can integrate both technical and social solutions. It optimizes use of scarce resources, connects governments with their citizens, and scales quickly to respond to dynamically changing conditions. Further, it enables both front-end insights, and feedback loops that power a cycle of continuous improvement which drives progress.

Gordon Feller, Board Member, Alliance for Innovation: Some cities are using SDGs as a vision statement and as a goal-post. Other cities are using SDGs as a benchmarking tool. This allows city executives to evaluate themselves (and/or their contractors), by comparison, against other cities that are either geographically close or similar to them. When benchmarking their urban performance against the SDGs, these cities are using the SDGs as a stand-in for external criteria.

Gerald Uche Maduabuchi, Director of Sales, Panorama Data Solutions Ltd: Africa faces the most challenges in meeting the SDG commitments with its highest environmental degradation, poverty and unemployment rates. But, counterpoints like social media and high mobile broadband penetration provide some unique opportunities for Smart City solutions. Smart City technologies can help Africa meet its SDG commitment. It entails enabling policy reforms and the use of new and existing technologies to improve all sectors of the economy.

Miguel Eiras Antunes, Global Smart City, Smart Nation & Local Government Leader, Deloitte: The link between smart city maturity and progress on SDGs is almost logical, and now we have the data from the ESI ThoughtLab survey to prove that link. While traditionally characterized by high population density and construction, cities are now rethinking their structure and functions to secure ecosystem resilience and human well-being and ensuring sustainable urban living. COVID-19 has only further accelerated the trend to create these cleaner air, walkable, green, bicycle cities.

Eugenie L. Birch, Nussdorf Professor and co-Director, Penn IUR: Cities use smart innovation to advance any number of SDGs depending on what they have selected to concentrate. For example, if they are focusing on Goal 3 health, they might use smart phone apps to help mothers keep track of their children’s vaccinations. If they are pursuing Goal 11 cities and human settlements, they might invest in various systems (water, sanitation, transit) to make them more efficient.

Ton de Vries, Senior Director, Business Development, Bentley Systems: The City of Porto, Portugal is focused on improving its entire urban water cycle. They commissioned a smart water management platform called H2Porto. This digital twin has helped to improve the accuracy of data produced from sensor readings to nearly 99%. Their water service interruptions fell by 22.9%, sewer collapses decreased by 54%; repairs for pipe burst and sewer and service connections improved as well by 8.3% and 45.5%.  The integration of real-time data and ability to access information in the field helped improve operations by 23%.‍

Cities like New York, Copenhagen, London, and Singapore stand out as leaders in both sustainability and smart innovation—what we call Cities 4.0. What can city leaders learn from these 4.0 approaches? Do they represent the urban model of the future? What do you see as the hallmarks of success for cities in the future?  

Jose Antonio Ondiviela, Microsoft Western Europe Industry Executive Smart Cities: Most cities are still in the 2.0 stage, gathering data to monitor and control the city. Few are starting the 3.0 ladder where they offer a citizen-centered service and none has fully achieved the 4.0 as a Cognitive/Inteligent city with technology managing all automated processes and citizens fully and permanently connected and cocreating the future of the city.

Aseem Joshi, General Manager of Smart Cities, Honeywell: Three important factors differentiate these cities in a shared vision, which is developed with deep stakeholder engagement and brought to reality by strong, execution-focused leadership. Instead of siloed approaches, these cities take a more integrated view to create improvements across a range of functional areas. As Honeywell has worked with multiple cities around the world, we have found this to be a consistent theme for success.

Jarendra Reddy, Director, Urban Solutions, Hatch: Many cities struggle to drive growth without compromising the quality of life for citizens or the long term social and environmental sustainability of their communities. Cities 4.0 — those making measurable progress in both SDGs and Smart Solutions — create balanced growth and share the benefits of this growth across broader segments of society. Investment in enabling infrastructure, grassroots innovation programs, tailored service provision, reduced dependence on scarce resources, and innovative delivery models are hallmarks of smart city solutions that advance SDG achievement.

Eugenie L. Birch, Nussdorf Professor and co-Director, Penn IUR: Many cities can learn from New York, Copenhagen, London, and Singapore but they have to realize that all adaptations have to be context specific – it is important for the “model” cities to reveal the conditions that allowed them to undertake their innovations and equally important for the adapting city to understand its own conditions – not to adopt something without adapting it.

Ton de Vries, Senior Director, Business Development, Bentley Systems: In our experience, we see successful innovation happening when collaboration happens. It’s where city leaders are collaborating across departments, partnering with technology providers, and partnering third party companies to identify a problem to solve or a service to provide, to connect the right data sources to build a digital twin fit for purpose, and delight their stakeholders by deliver new or improved services.

Our research shows that cities making the most progress on the SDGs typically monitor that progress, conduct voluntary reviews, and designate specific departments to lead SDG initiatives. What best practices would you recommend that cities follow to achieve the SDGs?    

Andrew Caruso, Director, Urban Solutions, Hatch: Strategy alone is not enough. Monitoring and evaluation help track progress on implementation at a tactical and operational level. Interventions should be informed by business case frameworks with SDGs as a central objective, using evidence to understand the triple-bottom-line outcomes and describing impacts in ways relevant to stakeholder groups. A system thinking approach is essential to aligning stakeholders and disciplines around objectives, performance, and needed refinement to achieve SDGs.

Gerald Uche Maduabuchi, Director of Sales, Panorama Data Solutions Ltd: The bottom-up approach is a holistic and most productive approach whereby the government institutes some study groups to conduct grassroots research and stakeholders’ consultation forums with the citizens, communities, NGOs, trade unions, private and foreign companies to enact a bill and formulate a Smart City Act. The Act, through its frameworks and directives, will be used to form an independent governing body who will be in charge of developing rules and regulations that will create an enabling environment for the SDGs and Smart City innovations; and it is achievable at any or all levels of government: federal, state or local.

Eugenie L. Birch, Nussdorf Professor and co-Director, Penn IUR: Cities need to align their own goals and objectives with those of the SDGs.  Many cities already have sustainability plans, so the key is to see where the SDG efforts and their own agree on directions. In other words, the global community cannot expect to impose the SDGs on cities – they have to let the cities (and nations) use the aspirational framework (that is what the SDGs are) as guidance.

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Smart City Solutions for a Riskier World is an in-depth global study designed to create an evidence-based roadmap to make cities safer, more sustainable, and resilient. The research reveals lessons learned from the pandemic, centered on the social, environmental, and economic imperatives that matter most, and based on objective quantitative analysis that shows which investments and technologies will be most effective for achieving their goals.

Expert Views: Post-Pandemic Trends in Cities

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As city leaders around the world continue to cope with the impacts of COVID-19, they are also assessing which will remain with us in a post-pandemic world. Repercussions of the health crisis, including recession, high unemployment, and the new urban exodus, have highlighted weaknesses and underscore why leaders need to improve public health and other infrastructures, create new jobs, and adopt new technologies and innovative solutions to address their social, environmental, and economic challenges.

ESI ThoughtLab’s thought leadership team asked experts participating in our Smart City Solutions for a Riskier World study to offer their perspectives on how the pandemic will reshape cities, what future trends they foresee for urban centers, and how smart technology and solutions, along with new partnerships, will help city leaders address the challenges they face.

Smart City Solutions for a Riskier World is a multi-organization initiative designed to create an evidence-based roadmap to making cities safe, sustainable, and resilient. The research will reveal lessons learned from the pandemic, centered on the social, environmental, and economic imperatives that matter most, and based on objective quantitative analysis that shows which investments and technologies will be most effective for achieving their goals. It builds off of last year’s research program, Building a Hyperconnected City.

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What will cities look like over the next 3-5 years? How will city living, shopping, working, and mobility change? Will Main Street look different? How so?‍

Kok-Chin TAY, Chairman, Smart Cities Network: COVID-19 has had tremendous impact on cities worldwide. Hence, future cities need to see an exponential growth in their use of technologies for city governance, to make progress with the digital economy, and get used to the future of work.

‍Gordon Feller, Advisor to cities; Board Member: 4 VC-funded smart-city solution providers; 4 non-profit smart-city solution providers: Executives who help lead cities—whether elected, appointed, or otherwise—must be armed with tools, and usable real-time data is among the most vital of those critical tools. Solid research and analysis can help leaders because they’re finding that data-at-rest is often found less useful than data-in-motion.

Miguel Eiras Antunes, Global Smart City, Smart Nation & Local Government Leader, Deloitte: The pandemic will have a long tail, and cities will take some time to bounce back. We will continue to see slower economic growth, a broader focus on public health infrastructure, and cities struggling with backlogs and pent-up demand. But we will see an emergence of an adaptive governance style that focuses on data-driven decision-making, adopting emerging technology, and implementing innovative policies.

‍Kevin Taylor, Segment Development Manager, Smart Cities, Axis Communications: In past years, there was a global mega-trend of populations moving into metropolitan centers. More recently, and in light of COVID-19, it is likely that more suburban areas will grow into mid-size cities. The things that have drawn people to cities over the last 30 years—economic opportunity, cultural/social/entertainment choices, and an environment conducive to mass transit and micro-mobility options—are likely to be scaled down into smaller “home-town” style communities.

Mark Saunders, Academic Director, Zigurat Global Institute of Technology: Cities may implement different changes, but it is important to appreciate which may be temporary and which more sustained. Key changes such as contactless payments are likely to become ubiquitous and permanent; issues like “the future of work” and the utilization of city center office space may be more dynamic.

‍Andrew Caruso, Director, Urban Solutions, Hatch: COVID-19 has reinforced fundamental principles of healthy, resilient communities. The ability to access the necessities of everyday life within one’s local context—food, education, economic opportunity, transit, safe space for exercise, and digital connection—has proven essential to surviving catastrophic risk events of all types. Buildings will need to increasingly flex to accommodate new uses. In the wake of rising eCommerce, we hope Main Streets find reawakening in their history of social and civic functions, potentially reinvigorated by rising levels of non-motorized transport adoption.

Raúl García-Rodríguez, Advisor, Real Estate Market Advisory Group, UNECE: Cities will be less automobile focused; people will try to reduce their mobility range to closer areas thus fostering neighborhood life rather than city life. All services will eventually return to the “closer” environment, suburban development will no longer focus just on retail services, offices, and industrial uses as all uses (other than non-polluting production) will reallocate within the “closer” areas.

‍William Baver, Vice President, Smart Platform, NTT: With remote working becoming a norm rather than an exception, new localisms emerge, and cities will have to deal with this by decentralizing their services and increasing flexibility to meet a demand that can scale up or down. Data-driven information can certainly help city leaders here in understanding for instance which facilities are used and how.

Yi Wang, Head of Global Development Program, ANBOUND: Science and technology are driving the sustainable development of cities. The development of diversity and equality with access to conceivable gadgets could prepare for uncertainties. City leaders have ideals and can handle their urban planning properly, but would they be able to plan people’s life? We will be rethinking the needs of people in a city that is truly people-oriented and that aims to bring about urban prosperity.

‍What techniques and tools will cities of the future use to achieve their sustainable goals? What role will smart technology, partnerships, and financing play in improving social, environmental, and economic conditions?

Yi Wang, Head of Global Development Program, ANBOUND: In today’s information society, material wealth can be digitized, including currency. History, cultural, and artistic expression are also in the process of rapid digitization. The smart city will not just rely on the tedious technical systems, but rather on smart technology like VR, AI, cloud, IoT, 5G/6G, robotics, biometrics, and anti-digital crime. Smart solutions will facilitate data platforms open to the public and engage business executives in regulations and policymaking.

Kevin Taylor, Segment Development Manager, Smart Cities, Axis Communications: The first tool that cities should leverage is an internal culture of collaboration. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it has revealed that no one person, stakeholder or department within government has all the answers to solve all the needs of the community. Best of all, this tool costs cities nothing; they already have everything they need to put it to work for the good of the community they serve. Cities will adopt technologies that are open architecture and compliant to established standards.

MC, UE, Launch of Metro 21, Smart Cities Institute, March 2 2018

Karen Lightman, Executive Director, Metro21: Smart Cities Institute, Carnegie Mellon University:Techniques such as user-centered design and design-thinking principles should guide any city of the future—because cities are about the people, not the gadgets. Yes, we should aim to improve efficiency, but not at the expense of human nature or humans in general. We should be mindful of diversity, equity, and inclusion to ensure that any techniques or technology are based on improving quality of life for all.

‍Miguel Eiras Antunes, Global Smart City, Smart Nation & Local Government Leader, Deloitte: New and emerging technologies will play a vital role. We will see a truly hyperconnected era in cities with the convergence of IoT, 5G, cloud, and edge computing. For instance, today’s smart cities might have sensor networks of a few thousand connected devices. Imagine a scenario where millions of such devices can be connected in a city center, measuring temperature, humidity, air quality, flood levels, pedestrian traffic, and more.

‍Jarendra Reddy, Director, Urban Solutions, Hatch: Smart solutions will enable transformations in both demand and supply. Real-time feedback could help consumers understand the impacts of consumption patterns and make individual decisions that optimize their use of scarce resources. Likewise, providers can leverage more robust data to assess future requirements and pinpoint opportunities to improve products and services, leading to more efficient and less impactful consumption and production patterns.

‍Karen Lightman, Executive Director, Metro21, Smart Cities Institute, Carnegie Mellon University: Techniques such as user-centered design and design-thinking principles should guide any city of the future—because cities are about the people, not the gadgets. Yes, we should aim to improve efficiency, but not at the expense of human nature or humans in general. We should be mindful of diversity, equity, and inclusion to ensure that any techniques or technology are based in improving quality of life for all.

William Baver, Vice President, Smart Platform, NTT: Smart technology, data, and analytics will need to be translated into new sustainable economic and environmental policies. Cities will need to learn how to harness the power of data to make more informed decisions and ultimately achieve their goals. AI and analytics-based solutions providing real-time and predictive information will be key alongside having better data and multiple data sources.

Mark Saunders, Academic Director, Zigurat Global Institute of Technology: Cities need to fully embrace a range of technologies to automate activities to make them more efficient and safer. Key “backbone” systems, like Internet of Things networks, allow a range of downstream benefits across the whole gamut of city life. We all need to help cities understand the hugely positive business cases around smart city developments and act on them.

‍Raul Garcia-Rodriguez, Advisor, Real Estate Market Advisory Group, UNECE: Corporate social responsibility and sustainability criteria will be the necessary catalyst for companies to survive. Innovation and technology will allow the adoption of sustainable criteria and policies for every process and activity. The financial sector could and should be the main catalyst when adopting CSR and sustainability criteria by providing capital for the transition conditioned to ESG impacts.‍

How will cities use a range of partnerships to achieve their future goals? How will they leverage partnerships with companies, government agencies, other cities, start-ups, universities, and other entities to make things happen?

‍Per Bjorkdahl, Sustainability Sales Engagement Director, Axis Communications: Construction of current partnerships needs to be revised to sustain dramatic changes that now caused disruptions. New partnerships need to broaden their scope to be able to withstand disruptions. Research institutes can contribute by narrow focus on local conditions backed by the research of best practices in a much wider context.

‍William Baver, Vice President, Smart Platform, NTT: Cities cannot be alone in this journey. They will need to partner with local, regional, global organizations across both the public and private sector to make this happen. We will see the creation of new business models that can allow these groups to exist and cooperate while sharing costs and profits. To make things happen, a two-way dialogue will be important to receive and share information on all fronts.

‍Kok-Chin TAY, Chairman, Smart Cities Network: Ecosystems of stakeholders will start to develop, as people begin to see the benefit of partnerships with the increased online interactions. Such partnerships will help fill the gaps that individual companies cannot fulfill.

‍Andrew Caruso, Director, Urban Solutions, Hatch: Our hope is that cities emerge from this crisis with the same vision—the courage to reimagine existing relationships and structures between stakeholders, and the focused ambition to generate opportunities for shared value and prosperity. Much like a vaccine trial, reinventing our cities will be iterative. It will require quantitative analysis and qualitative reflection. We must talk about failures as much as successes, shift away from celebrating the individual successes to collective prosperity, and leverage and invent new technology at every step.

John Tuohy, Director, Smart Cities Strategy, Oracle: Cities will need to partner with other academic, non-profit, and government agencies to use platforms for online services and engagement that may have a high startup cost. An example might be using a non-profit platform to attend a conference shared by multiple conference providers. Also, start-ups that offer niche pointed solutions in lieu of expensive enterprise solutions, provided they can provide integration and security.

Mark Saunders, Academic Director, Zigurat Global Institute of Technology: Resilience is a “team sport” and no single party can succeed on their own. While cities compete with one another, there is also much to do to share and work together. Sharing “what works” and “what didn’t work” are key aspects of this and when cities define longer term outcome-based aspirations, different companies, agencies, and institutions can identify how they are able to contribute and collaborate.

Miguel Eiras Antunes, Global Smart City, Smart Nation & Local Government Leader, Deloitte: A successful development strategy for cities depends on six critical factors: technological innovation, citizen involvement and co-creation, strategic partnerships, local leadership strategy, innovations in public procurement, and new innovative financing systems. It is necessary to create the right conditions for people to develop their business, invest in education, create a vibrant talent economy, and evolve a robust technology ecosystem. Governments can’t do it alone: they will need to build a broad, multi-stakeholder ecosystem on the ground.

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