Page 34 - U4SSC Blockchain for smart sustainable cities

The reliance on smart solutions in communications technologies gives rise to concerns for security in
the field of smart initiatives. Some of the cyberattacks with the greatest impact have emerged from
IoT networks. In addition, smart solutions often rely on having personal information on city platforms
that can be used to create profiles of citizens and this raises the question of privacy and protection
of personal data. The challenge for cities and communities is to ensure that the legal frameworks
and appropriate technical measures are in place to reduce these risks and ensure sufficient public
confidence to support these initiatives. There is a complex balance to be struck between security and
accessibility, and the means to achieve this is still evolving.

Smart initiatives may necessitate new policies and regulations for their implementation and operation.
This might be to take account of new technologies, such as driverless cars; or to facilitate new ways of
working together, such as purchasing regulations to facilitate crowdsourced solutions. In many cases,
regulations do not facilitate the implementation of private infrastructures in the public space, or the use
of new technologies for communication between residents and local decision-makers. This creates a
serious problem of legal insecurity for those interested in developing smart initiatives. New regulations
need to be developed and mechanisms need to be implemented to enforce their use.

There is a challenge in financing the implementation and operation of smart solutions. Many smart
initiatives involve new technologies and standards that are not widely tested, with a consequently
greater uncertainty regarding their success. This is an obstacle to motivating investment in them.
Currently, many smart city initiatives are funded by government sources either at the local or national
levels, which is often justified by the prospect of increasing revenues or decreasing costs associated
with public services. However, this exerts great stress on the public budget. Other smart projects are
financed by public-private partnerships, the private sector, donors or individuals. For cities to access a
wider range of funds, business models need to be explored that encourage the private sector and other
sources of funds to be part of these initiatives, and this calls for appropriate contractual arrangements
and management of contracts.

One way to understand smart cities is the framework developed by UNU-EGOV that incorporates
these six domains and also maps the process of becoming smarter in terms of the context, inputs,
transformations and outcomes as shown in Figure 5. The effective design, operation and management
of the smart city are not just about technologies and also involve strategies and processes. Problems
are identified in any one of the six domains and are prioritized in terms of a city or community’s
context. Smart technologies and tools provide the means to address these; however, there needs to
be a transformation process during their application, in order to achieve the desired outcomes.

“Smartness” depends, therefore, on a vision of an excellent city or community performing well in
a number of areas, and the effective harnessing of the city's endowments through the activities of
competent and aware stakeholders including officials, private companies, social entrepreneurs and
individual residents.

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