What is a ‘Smart City’?

The concept of the ‘smart city’ is often described in terms of applying digital or ICT - Information and Communications Technology - to address the challenges faced by cities and citizens. Particularly in the contexts of increasing urbanisation across the world, challenges around sustainability, population growth and mobility, and the increasing importance of cities to the global economy.

Early on, debates in this area were largely concerned with the relationships between technology providers and city governments, with citizens often left out. More recently, though, initiatives aim to create a virtuous and integrated collaboration between a city’s governance, technology and citizens, with all three playing an active role. This is what we would like to see become the norm in Sheffield.

In addition, the focus on digital and computing technologies is broadening to include other innovations, such as new business models and ways of collaborating and delivering value, not just technical solutions.

One of the main problems with the phrase ‘smart city’ is that it is not easy for the majority of citizens to understand or want to get behind. it sounds cold, and technical and not very inspiring. Many cities and agencies that work in this space therefore prefer to talk about the ‘future city’ or ‘urban innovation’ or similar things.

Nonetheless, the phrase ‘smart city’ has been around for quite a while now, and serves a useful purpose as an easily searchable umbrella term. 

Another characteristic of the smart city concept is that it is considered differently in different places, as each city has it’s own unique features, resources and challenges, determined by their specific topography, location, history, economy, demographics and politics. So while there are many challenges that cities share in common, not all solutions will work everywhere.

The SmartSheffield community is interested in smart city projects and applications of all kinds in the city, sharing information about what’s going on and getting actively involved in projects whatever their scale.