In early November at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona—the Smart Cities equivalent of The Oscars—Shenzhen picked up the prestigious Smart City of 2024 award for its ‘Smarter City, Better Life’ initiative.
The initiative focused on transforming the Chinese city through digitalisation, advanced urban management, and sustainable development to tackle challenges like dense population, resource limitations, and environmental concerns. Shenzhen is a technology hothouse and a showcase for China’s biggest technology players, including Huawei.
Shenzhen, in South China’s Guangdong Province, integrates high-speed broadband, digital twins, artificial intelligence (AI), and data-driven governance in how the city is run. It has successfully digitised government administrative areas by introducing a mobile app that deals with most local administrative affairs, including paying utility bills and traffic fines.
Early in 2024, Shenzhen agreed on a cooperative relationship with another smart city pioneer, Abu Dhabi. The “twin city” agreement commits both cities to share knowledge and collaborate on new smart city projects across multiple areas including infrastructure, city planning, green mobility, transportation, advanced technology, autonomous solutions, sustainability, and urban development.
Abu Dhabi is one of a series of high-profile smart city developments now underway in the Middle East. Others include Smart Dubai, NEOM in Saudi Arabia, and Masdar City, an urban community in Abu Dhabi.
The challenges facing smart cities
Despite their futuristic gloss and data-driven thinking, smart cities, for all their promise, must address several issues, none of which are easy to solve. These include a lack of adequate infrastructure, concerns about transparency and data privacy, and coordination between the public and private sectors—as well as difficulty creating sufficient capacity for smart initiatives.
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By GlobalDataThe US company Modeshift, which provides smart technology solutions to the public transportation sector, has highlighted capacity concerns around finance, data processing and efficiency, energy, inadequate network connectivity, and social inclusion. And of course, as these cities rely on the gathering and analysing of data from numerous sources, there is an ever-present cybersecurity risk.
Some of these issues were recently discussed in an insightful article in the Southern Maryland Chronicle in the US. The October 2024 piece, ‘Privacy Concerns Hold Back Smart City Progress in Waldorf’, pointed out that “smart cities have been touted as the future of urban living, promising to enhance online connectivity, streamline infrastructure, and bolster public safety.” Yet while cities like Los Angeles and New York are “leading the charge” to embrace smart technologies, some areas, including Waldorf, Maryland, remain sceptical. Concerns over privacy, data security, and potential government overreach have left many residents wary of adopting these innovations.
The piece highlighted a survey by HostingAdvice, which polled 3,000 people across the United States, and which highlighted a growing divide in public opinion regarding these cities. The survey revealed that while many cities are enthusiastic about the benefits of smart infrastructure, other regions, including parts of Maryland, are more cautious.
Mixed reactions
There were mixed reactions across Maryland, with Germantown, Baltimore, and Silver Spring identified as cities ready to embrace the technology. Residents of these areas pointed to the potential for smarter transportation, more efficient infrastructure, and improved environmental sustainability as the primary benefits of smart cities.
But in cities like Waldorf and Columbia, support for smart city initiatives was lower. Waldorf showed a significant degree of doubt. Many residents expressed concerns about privacy and the potential for constant surveillance.
As the article pointed out, “The fear of a ‘Big Brother’ society, where every action is monitored, plays a significant role in the opposition to smart city technologies.” There is concern over the installation of surveillance cameras to track citizens’ movements in real-time. “Critics argue that such systems represent a significant invasion of privacy and personal freedom, a reality many in Waldorf fear could come to their city if smart technologies are implemented….Data security and the risk of hacking were cited as additional worries, with 28% of respondents indicating fear of unwanted government control or interference.”
And yet, despite these concerns, there remains strong support for the benefits of these cities in certain areas. 32% of survey respondents identified more efficient infrastructure and transportation as the most appealing aspect of smart technology. With the ongoing fight against climate change, the environmental sustainability offered by smart systems was also a significant benefit, particularly after the summer heatwaves seen across the US in 2024.
Learning the lessons on smart cities
As of April 2023, 4.4 billion people, or 56% of the world’s population, lived in cities. The United Nations projects that this number will increase to 68% by 2050. That is, 1 in 7 will live in cities. So, cities must get smart(er) to be able to cope with that demand amid worries over climate change. But, given those concerns expressed in Maryland, perhaps the mantra should be “smart, but not too smart.”
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