Hong Kong has established itself as the clear early smart city leader in the Asia/Pacific region.
Of the 10 cities in the study, Hong Kong scored in the Top 2 in five of the six categories, and earned top honors in Smart Mobility and Smart People.
Hong Kong is a dense and cosmopolitan city, which has attracted highly educated expatriates from around the globe. Hong Kong is home to eight government-funded universities, which are increasingly attracting foreign students and faculty. According to my research, it is the only city in Asia to average more than one transit ride per day per capita (more than 500 trips per capita per year).
Hong Kong at Night
(Photo by Don Chow)
Hong Kong is also actively leveraging information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve efficiency and citizen services. It was ranked 5th in the world and 2nd in the Asia/Pacific region in the Rutgers study of e-governance. The city has one of the first and most successful implementations of smart cards for residents (Octopus), allowing them to use one card to pay for public transit and parking, schools, and in some cases even access to smarter buildings.
Great criteria I love seeing all of these criteria in one place to define a smart city. It helps to get a bigger picture, so we can see where we need to improve! Have you applied these criteria to any north or south American cities?
Re: Smart list Ohh so relative This is a good exercise as a RELATIVE exercise in "smartness", but having lived the past year in Singapore I would hardly concur with your view that there are "smart" locations in Asia. Please, set your benchmarks, baselines, level of credibility, higher than business-as-usual, which is where these 10 "top" locations stand. None are really, truly "smart". They are, at best, "sensible", not in the "common sense" definition, but in the "alive and resPonding to stimuli" definition.
If you REALLY want Smart, then define the idea to which we should be aspiring: zero net emissions, zero net energy, zero net water, zero net waste, zero net externalities, and near zero virtual energy, water, resource imports.
Then we will have a better sense of how far we are from where we need to be, and how important it is for us to tap into transformational changes, not just incremental improvements that will fail miserably if that is all we do
Smart Cities Good comparison. I would be intersted in seeing a complete list of the North American cities, in particular, where my home Las Vegas falls in the analysis. Might create incentive to get off our collective back sides and smarten up.
Re: Smart list Ohh so relative No doubt we have a long way to go to achieve the ideal. But that shouldn't stop us from praising those cities that are headed in the right direction.
The risk of getting discouraged too soon is that it can hinder incremental progress toward the bigger goals. Some citizens might think, "I can't get there, so why try?"
Re: Great criteria Thank you for your feedback on the rankings. In fact I have completed rankings of EU and North American cities using the same smart cities wheel framework. They were published in Fast Company's online site which focuses on impact (fastcoexist).
Re: Smart list Thanks Mary, per my above comment to another reader, I have actually applied the same approach to ranking EU and North American Cities. Those rankings can be found on Fastco Exist.
Re: Consider Wuxi It does seem that Wuxi has a lot of initiative and much growth. Are you a resident there? Can you tell us a bit about what's happening?
Smart City Money Makers companies and solutions that are most prominent, and destined to be most profitable, in the smart city revolution.
How to Make Your City Smarter Cities all over the world need to become smarter and more sustainable. But where to start? Download this guide to learn the first, proven steps toward making your city smarter.
Site Moderators Future Cities is looking for engaged readers to moderate the message boards on this site. Engage in high-IQ conversations; earn kudos and perks. Interested? E-mail: moderators@ubmfuturecities.com
webinars
Latest Archived
3/19/2013 From Smart Building to Smart City In this Webinar, speakers from the industry and from IBM will explain how smart buildings become smart cities. Attendees will learn the basic characteristics and functions of smart buildings; how these facilities are interconnected; what kinds of urban systems can be included in such a network; and how the cloud model can create a smart, sustainable, and self-regulating city from the foundation of smart buildings.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This