Page 11 - Redefining smart city platforms: Setting the stage for Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms - A U4SSC deliverable on city platforms

1 Introduction: The challenges facing cities and communities

1.1 The need to manage increasing complexity

City and other local government administrations strive to improve the life of their inhabitants,
increase the ease of doing business and facilitate the transition to a sustainable future.

It is proving increasingly difficult to achieve those goals comprehensively. This is partly due to
the current situation and environment of cities and local communities, where resources are often
limited, and where they face new challenges including extreme weather conditions, an aging
population and rapid technological change. These are factors that generally lie beyond the ability
of cities and communities to influence proactively.

However, there are two systemic problems where technology can help provide city and community
administrations with solutions.

1.1.1 The siloed nature of city and community management

A city’s systems are managed in order to best deliver on the goals of each individual systems. The
challenge is that the goals of the different systems often seem to conflict with one another. For
instance, the aim of one department to lower the carbon footprint of the city may seem to contradict
the aims of other departments to develop the local economy or to provide services as cheaply as
possible. These different aims mean that different systems within the city are likely to be managed
in isolation, which could often lead to conflicts in the outputs of the different systems.

These problems could be exacerbated by the administrative situation within cities, with different
stakeholders having differing priorities and with a short-term focus on the electoral cycle. Even
establishing pacts between the different parties with a role in city governance is not the most
effective way of delivering on long-term strategies as they are often constrained by the need to
compromise between different visions.

1.1.2 The complexity of cities

As cities have evolved, they have become increasingly complex. Service managers have to rely on
incomplete, out-of-date, inconsistent and unreliable information. Trial-and-error and best efforts
are, therefore, a typical management style of cities.

As a result, management decisions to achieve the goals of the city often fail to deliver. They are
also often not aligned with management decisions within other service areas of the city.

Redefining smart city platforms: Setting the stage for Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms 1