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New York City is special in a lot of ways. With a population of more than 8 million, it's the largest city in the U.S. by far. And buildings over 25,000 square feet cover almost 60% of the city's building area. So it makes sense that a city...
Article - 08/17/2018
Active Region(s): North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Policy and leadership
Our story summarizes new research that should interest city officials, particularly those in coastal communities subject to frequent damaging storms. In addition to explaining why wetlands are useful in disaster situations—and this is a key takeaway...
Article - 11/17/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Water and wastewater, Policy and leadership
The planning process for a smart city never really ends. The technologies that make smart cities possible evolve quickly; markets and economies change; priorities change, and what a city's residents expect—whether it's a better, faster transit...
Article - 10/06/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Transportation, Policy and leadership
What may be the best path forward for one city's smart city project may not work for another. Each city's needs and what citizens expect differ from city to city. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, we can learn quite a lot from what other...
Article - 08/24/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Citizen engagement, Policy and leadership
Miskolc, Hungary, is a mid-size industrial city that has taken on a number of civic improvement projects, among them planning a public square as a focal point for the city and an expanded mass transit system.Deputy Mayor Péter Pfliegler and other...
Article - 04/27/2016
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Transportation, Citizen engagement, Policy and leadership
China’s stated intent to be the world’s smart city technology leader in five years is certainly ambitious. It also seems to be a matter of necessity for the country.As readers know, people are moving from rural and other outlying areas into the...
Article - 11/20/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Smart City Concepts, Built environment, Policy and leadership, Policy frameworks and tools
It takes a fair amount of courage to be the first to do something, but cities and other government agencies that adopted a more pioneering attitude have made tremendous progress in reducing environmental impact and driving economic growth.Four such...
Article - 09/22/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Citizen engagement, Policy and leadership
By Barbara ThorntonIn 1994 when Tom Murphy became Mayor of Pittsburgh, the city had been in decline for 50 years. He looked at his assets:300,000 residents (half of what it had been)Thousands of acres of empty or underutilized landA significantly...
Article - 08/26/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Finance and procurement, Policy and leadership
Memorial Bridge in Portsmouth, NH will soon have integrated structural, traffic and environmental monitoring programs. It's one of nine cutting-edge traffic safety improvement projects funded by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).The idea...
Article - 08/19/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Transportation, Instrumentation and control, Policy and leadership
Washington, D.C.'s Department of General Services (DGS) signed off on an agreement with Iberdrola Renewables for all of the output from the company's South Chestnut 46 MW wind farm in southwestern Pennsylvania.Not only will the deal provide 35% of...
Article - 07/22/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Policy and leadership
Every year since 1999, the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) think-tank announces which world city it deems most intelligent after a year-long evaluation that includes a quantitative analysis of extensive data, site inspections by the Intelligent...
Article - 06/19/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Smart City Concepts, Built environment, Economic development, Health and human services, Policy and leadership
Speaking at a smart cities conference last year, an Israeli Energy and Water Ministry official declared that the primary goal for smart cities should be to accommodate the needs of all citizens rather than be a collection of smart technologies. In...
Article - 04/01/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Citizen engagement, Policy and leadership
Scroll down for a look at some nice honors recently bestowed on Council members…Bechtel national security sites win sustainability awards Four national security sites that Council Lead Partner Bechtel manages and operates with industry and...
Article - 12/23/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Transportation, Policy and leadership
India says its smart cities goal is too ambitious to accomplish on its own, and it is slashing red tape to make it easier for more outside partners, consultants, and even the United States government to step in to help. But as work to create 100 new...
Article - 10/15/2014
Active Region(s): India, Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Energy, Policy and leadership
The Australian city of Adelaide in June launched AdelaideFree, a wholesale makeover of its free citywide WiFi network. This public-private joint venture involved installing nearly 200 new wireless access points from SCC Lead Partner Cisco. Another...
Article - 08/27/2014
Active Region(s): Main, Australia - New Zealand, North America
Category: Built environment, Connectivity, Policy and leadership, Examples and case studies
Australia’s fastest-growing city is trying to stop a fast-growing problem: How to keep up the economic growth while still providing a place for low-income residents to live.As cities grow, low-income housing is often the first to be cleared out to...
Article - 08/08/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Health and human services, Policy and leadership
Council Associate Partner Siemens and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group announced 31 finalist projects from 26 cities for its climate awards program. The global prize competition recognizes innovative city climate actions in 10 categories...
Article - 07/04/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Transportation, Policy and leadership
The spotlight at last week's Intelligent Community Summit was on Toronto – but in this case for the example it has set on how to flourish in the new economy -- not its embattled mayor. After two times in the finals, Toronto was named 2014...
Article - 06/11/2014
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Policy and leadership
It's no secret that many (most?) smart city plans include the idea of a magnet area for technology businesses. Not content to merely make digital life better for all, many cities want to pull in more high-tech businesses. They typically do that by...
Article - 09/25/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Connectivity, Policy and leadership
I've always had an admiration for architects and urban planners. (I almost pursued a degree in the field.) But I continue to read complaints that today's practitioners are missing the boat. In particular, they are failing to bake smart technologies...
Article - 09/25/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Transportation, Policy and leadership
Take a look at the remarkable progress of China's Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). China's Ministry of Commerce ranks SIP as the most competitive industrial park in the country. I think it's the most competitive in the world. I predict you will agree...
Article - 09/23/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Connectivity, Data management, Policy and leadership, Examples and case studies
"A crisis is a terrible thing to waste" goes the old joke. So is an earthquake. “The rebuilding of Christchurch following the 2011 earthquakes presents an extraordinary opportunity to fit the city with sensors and hardware, to collect data that will...
Article - 09/11/2013
Active Region(s): Main, Australia - New Zealand, North America
Category: Built environment, Health and human services, Water and wastewater, Citizen engagement, Instrumentation and control, Policy and leadership
The research arm of The Economist has just published a report benchmarking the global competitiveness of the world's 120 largest cities. We list the top ten below. You can also read a quick summary at 24/7 Wall Street but I suggest you download the...
Article - 08/14/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Economic development, Instrumentation and control, Policy and leadership
This article from ArchDaily meanders all over the place, but there's an important nugget buried within. Architects are often asked to design the buildings and neighborhoods and cities of the future. Yet they are woefully uninformed about the amazing...
Article - 08/14/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Instrumentation and control, Policy and leadership
Does the Smart Cities Council need to become the Smart Suburbs Council instead? New research from the University of Lincoln (UK), the New Zealand Energy Centre and the University of Auckland claims that suburbs have a greater potential to become...
Article - 08/14/2013
Active Region(s): Main, Australia - New Zealand, North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Policy and leadership
Rocky Mountain Institute recently posted a thorough discussion of the value streams from smart buildings. Most people, they explain, try to cost justify the technology merely on the basis of the energy it saves. But smart buildings bring a lot more...
Article - 08/07/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Finance and procurement, Policy and leadership
By Jesse Berst Greenfields projects are vitally important to the success of the smart cities movement. Because they have fewer constraints, because they are not hampered by the additional expense of retrofitting, they become the proving ground for...
Article - 08/07/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Smart City Concepts, Built environment, Citizen engagement, Policy and leadership
Q&A with Pascal Terrien, Director for Sustainable Cities Program, EDF Research and DevelopmentPascal Terrien leads the sustainable cities effort at French giant EDF, a Smart Cities Council Lead Partner. The EDF Group is a world-leading...
Article - 08/07/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Policy and leadership
The United Kingdom's Technology Strategy Board (an advisor to the Smart Cities Council) has just released findings from stage one of its Future Cities Demonstrator Programme. The notice announcing the new report calls out two key findings. First,...
Article - 07/09/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Smart City Concepts, Built environment, Health and human services, Transportation, Policy and leadership
Many smart city observers believe older cities will be left behind. Green-field cities, like those being built from scratch in China, will have a much easier time, they say, since new cities don't have to retrofit legacy infrastructure.In some cases...
Article - 07/01/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Smart City Concepts, Built environment, Health and human services, Citizen engagement, Policy and leadership
Superstorm Sandy was a watershed moment in North America. It forced cities to confront the realities of climate change. Severe weather events will be much more common in the future. How can your city be more resilient? One answer is to enlist help...
Article - 06/19/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Energy, Computing resources, Policy and leadership
Here's a short but useful article from an expert on finding hidden assets. GeoTel Communications helps cities locate un- or under-used fiber optic cable, cable they can then leverage to boost economic development. The author makes these key points:"...
Article - 06/10/2013
Active Region(s): Main, North America
Category: Built environment, Connectivity, Finance and procurement, Policy and leadership
This documentary profiles 10 megaprojects currently under development around the world, including the Dubai World Central Airport, Songdo International Business District in South Korea, Nicaragua's Grand Canal and the Delhi-Mumbai industrial...
Resources - 09/25/2015
Active Region(s): Main, North America, Readiness Guide Online
Category: Smart City Concepts, Built environment, Policy and leadership