Dr Simon Moores (Futurologist and Government Technology Adviser) explores the future of the cities shaped by new technology and new demands.
The evolution of the city as an organism has fascinated and captured the imagination of land and built environmental professionals for decades. In the wake of rapid urbanisation and the unprecedented growth of megacities, the concept of a “smart city” has dominated global discourse. Driving efficiencies, fostering sustainability and creating thriving, harmonious communities fit for future generations is at the heart of central and local government strategies worldwide.
Against this backdrop, the RICS UK Summit 2016 hosted a session on Future Cities.
It began with Dr Simon Moores highlighting the brilliance and allure of the evolving urban eco-system, while ensuring the audience were more than acutely aware of the challenges and threats posed by such exponential growth.
Cllr James Noakes from Liverpool City Council and Sarah Gonsalves, Head of Policy and Performance at Milton Keynes Council, also took to the stage to showcase the practical reality of their smart city vision and strategy.
Data driven possibilities
Dr Moores advocated the boundless potential of data and analytics to change how cities are managed, operated and experienced. The connection of urban environments, which were previously fragmented by historical and geographical disruption, can now be seamlessly facilitated by the current technological revolution.
Of course, “the winners will be those [cities] with the most data, the fastest servers and the most processing power”, informing and successfully delivering a relevant and compelling intelligence-driven urban strategy.
Inevitably, with unlimited connectivity and the rise of the algorithm-driven economy, comes the risk of data breach. In an increasingly transparent world, security and privacy are key concerns.
Who owns your data? Who has access to your data? Who has the right to use your data? Expanding this to the urban spectrum, who is responsible when a smart city crashes? With jobs being automated out of existence by technology, who is keeping people and property safe?
People focus
Despite a 58% reduction in budget, Liverpool City Council’s vision of a smart city is poised to deliver urban transformation with an acute understanding of both the issues and opportunities that face their citizens. Cllr Noakes elaborated on how rising population numbers, world class university education and a supportive mayor have the potential to combine to create a truly innovative smart city with people at its heart.
Recently Liverpool City Council Adult Social Care Commissioners and Local Enterprise Partnership worked with Red Ninja to introduce a Helping-Hand Mobile app, transforming the lives of elderly people in North Liverpool by making online grocery shopping accessible. In the context of a growing elderly population, such apps have the potential to transcend generational barriers, foster interconnection and build trust in technology.
While making great leaps forward, Cllr Noakes acknowledged there are still challenges for the city of Liverpool to overcome. The question remains who will pay for continued infrastructural and service improvement, essential to develop the smart city vision.
Also, with people’s expectations rapidly changing, the pressure to be at the forefront of innovation and development, will only increase. As Charles Darwin once predicted, “those who have learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively [will] have prevailed”.
Urban test bed
Milton Keynes is infamous for being “a green city, a new city, a planned city and a successful city” and its latest aspiration is to become a future, as outlined by Sarah Gonsalves. The traditional challenges of local government, such as barriers to sustainable housing and jobs growth, improving the lives of citizens and building leadership in urban innovation have propelled the Milton Keynes future city programme forwards.
At the nucleus of this initiative is MK: Smart; an innovative and collaborative flagship programme, led by the Open University. Working in partnership with Milton Keynes Council and numerous businesses, such as BT, E:ON and Anglian Water, the data hub provided by MK: Smart has allowed the council to harness the power of analytics to inform policy.
Their success has been defined by attracting funding, identifying issues and developing a truly collaborative urban culture.
A visualisation of the inputs and outputs of the MK: Data Hub
Competition between cities was noted by Sarah as an opportunity to share knowledge and best practice, in order to address the main challenges still facing the Milton Keynes Future City vision, including:
- Development of investable business models
- Delivery of benefits at scale
- Sustainability of core local government capabilities
- Continued attraction of new enterprise
Potential of the profession
The session drew to a close with a fundamental question from the floor about how the land and built environment profession can support the smart city agenda. Dr Moores championed having a future strategy which aligns to your business model. Sarah wanted continued creation of urban environments which attract start-ups, incubate ideas and ultimately, stimulate the economy.
Cllr Noakes finished by challenging the profession to have a better discussion about what constitutes viability, noting how successful smart cities can be when they listen to their citizens to deliver true future-fit solutions. Overall, there is no doubt the surveying profession has a huge role to play in supporting the creation of successful and sustainable future cities.
Urban development will rely on our professional expertise to craft resilient and affordable solutions in a rapidly changing world and to work cross-functionally with communities, leaders and citizens, to deliver excellence.
About the World Built Environment Forum (WBEF)
This report was written by Megan Richardson, Development Surveyor, Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd
The World Built Environment Forum demonstrates responsible leadership for the built environment and is an annual, global event which takes place on a different continent each year.
This forum creates and sets the standard for dialogue and collaboration among professionals, clients, policy makers and regulators with the aim of driving up standards so that our profession and our industry show responsible leadership in enabling sustainable growth.
Find out more about the WBEF, access videos from the event and get details of upcoming events.
Additional links:
See what learning tools are available for you at rics.org/training