Four Strategies To Make Smart Cities Work For Citizens

Local government needs to engage with citizens to find out their needs before investing millions into smart city programs, according to advisory firm Gartner.

It proposed four strategies to refocus smart cities around the needs of the community.

The first is understanding the issues directly impacting citizens and aligning technology to fix those problems. Second, chief technology officers (CIOs) should not forget those that aren’t great with digital skills and be mindful of leaving people behind. Third, open data to the public, allowing them to provide ideas that fulfil the needs of the community. Fourth, CIOs need to use clear measurements and key performance indicators for stakeholders.

“Government CIOs today need to look at creatinginnovation strategies to attract new industries and develop digital skills. They need to look at changing their spatial planning, road infrastructure, dataand service management,” said Bettina Tratz-Ryan, research vice president at Gartner.

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Most analyst strategies for local government that tend to invest in Internet of Things and machine learning reinforce that they will reap the rewards. Not many tell them to be cautious on investment and double-check that this is the correct course of action for the community.

It parallels sentiment felt by communities that have been divided by technology rather than propelled to new heights. Even with the stark message, Gartner still supports higher technology spending at all levels of government, just with a little more conversation between the city leaders and the citizens.