6 minute read
Why It Is Time to Reevaluate the Function of a City
BY JOSÉ ANTONIO ONDIVIELA
We must consider our cities in a “reboot,” rethinking processes, operations, citizen engagement, and spaces.
We have an opportunity to reevaluate how our cities function, the services they provide, and how spaces are dedicated. Achieving operational efficiency and providing green services is challenging, but it is the new normal. Devoting more areas for social activities while reducing the space dedicated to cars is an indisputable target. Let’s imagine the future of our cities with technology as a loyal ally, over the shoulders of intelligent urbanism and social citizen engagement. Here are 10 keys to understanding the cities of the future.
Sustainable and Green City
The city of the future is associated with the concept of sustainability. We are seeing a lot of different initiatives like the EU Green Deal, California’s AB 32 Global Warming Solutions Act, and the UK Climate Change Act. Not only is carbon-neutral important, but so is the concept of circular cities, where we need to properly manage the matter on our planet.
New Urban Mobility
This topic is a combination of many factors—business models, new vehicles, and new economy—with the imperative to be sustainable from the environmental point of view. We have to balance the need for fast and convenient public transportation with reducing emissions, reducing deaths, the zero-vision concept, and the need to create or include new business models. The new transportation will be green, shared, and electric, and it will be or is striving to be autonomous.
Accelerated Technological Adoption
Cities are adopting a full transformation of the way they work. They are giving civil servants and employees tools to deliver better service, optimizing operations by embracing modern cloud computing, analytics platforms, and new ways to connect and engage with citizens. Because of all this data and artificial intelligence tools, we can create new services to better serve our community.
The New City in Three Distances
For the concept of a three-dimensional city, we consider three distances: The city of 90-minutes commuting time, the big metropolis. The 15-minute city, as proposed by the City of Paris, where they raved that you can reach 95% of everything you need in less than a 15-minute commute using a micro-electric vehicle or public transportation. This is the concept of an environment where citizens can enjoy a wonderful quality of life at this short distance. And, finally, the one-minute city, proposed by the City of Stockholm, which is trying to create social areas inside our district.
Local vs. Online Commerce
Cities are trying to compete against online commerce monsters and protect the local economy and stores. They are adding artificial intelligence and new technologies to better compete and take advantage of the concept of proximity, knowing the people and connecting to them so they can can interact and work with them.
Hybrid Work Model
The hybrid work model is here to stay. We can understand that the new work style is defined by these three Ws: new work tasks and work tools, which are more virtual, more services-related, less physical; new workforce, new generations working, the adoption of a generation set, and millennials changing the way they are using technology (we need to re-adapt our service to those needs); and a new workplace that will be hybrid. You can see the paradox we obtained in our Microsoft internal survey: 73% of people want to continue working remotely, but 67% also want more in-person engagement. So, we need to accommodate both trends, and the only solution is the hybrid model.
Need for Additional Training (Reskilling)
We need reskilling for our civil servants and citizens. We need to improve their skills to increase their employability so that our city is more attractive for investors. People are trying to find the best place to achieve or develop their full potential, and to make this happen, they are choosing those cities. This is a competition for talent at the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution. This is raising the concept of city attractiveness—an attractiveness to retain and attract talent, creating the conditions for this to happen.
Cybersecurity and Digital Rights
Our cities are suffering here a lot. Half of our cities are impacted by ransomware, which is a serious crime. They’re making more money than the narcotrafficking industry. We need to face this using the latest technologies and trust the cloud providers to manage our security and data confidentiality. We also need to comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and other regulations across the world. And we need to protect the very sensitive data of our citizens, which is super-important.
Value of the Critical Supply Chain
These days, we have a lot of scary news about potential supply shortages or blackouts. Very
clearly, we need to improve the resiliency of the supply chain. We need to guarantee that we have supplies when needed by offering different alternatives at affordable prices.
A Renaissance in Culture
Let me dream about a new world where we appreciate the values associated with human creation, art, and everything that is humanmade and take advantage of the benefits of technology. Technology is an enabler; it’s not our destiny. We need to also appreciate what is purely human. So, let me dream about a renaissance in culture.
The New Model for Smart Cities
And, finally, a summary of what could be the new model for smart cities: Human: Citizen-centric with welfare and quality of life as the major goal. Sense of Community: Ideally, the city would be a beehive where all citizens cooperate around a collective task or project with a strong sense of unity, belonging, and identity. Social Enabler: The city facilitates relationships, making society more inclusive, diverse, and livable with shared activities. Citizens as Co-Creators: The city as an expression of collective experience with citizens who are proud to contribute. Open, Respectful, and Ethical: The city as a place where living means that we can reach the highest ethical achievements while also creating strong identity and values. Sustainable: Social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Self-Everything: Self-sufficient in water, energy, matter, people and talent, funding, and resiliency. Smart DataSphere: AI-driven digital twin models monitoring the physical city, simulating potential improvement alternatives but always understanding living humans. Zero Everything: Zero pollution, carbon, violence, poverty, inequality, and nonrenewable energies. Metropolis Broken (90-15-1 City): Walking distance suburbs and districts, spaces for humans, walkable, and bike-friendly.
Agile, Dynamic, and Versatile: Always creating projects, experimenting, listening to citizens, applying feedback, adapting to new circumstances, developing new solutions, and starting over again and again. As the famous American urbanist Jane Jacobs said, “We need to create opportunities, solve problems, and innovate. All three are inseparable.”
José Antonio Ondiviela
Smart Cities Solutions Director, Microsoft Western Europe
Madrid, Spain
Professor José Antonio Ondiviela is the Smart Cities Solutions Director for Microsoft Western Europe. He is also an Associate Fellow Researcher and Director for the WorldWide Observatory for Attractive Cities at the University Francisco Vitoria in Madrid. He is very active in the academic area, with a Ph.D. thesis and book titled Beyond Smart Cities: Creating the Most Attractive City for Talented Citizens. He is a frequent speaker at international events and a UNESCO Smart Cities SME Consultant.
