Building Innovation and Engagement for Sustainable Cities

Blog by Dr. Sylvie Albert, University of Winnipeg (Canada)

Innovative Solutions to Creating Sustainable Cities is available from Cambridge Scholar at https://www.cambridgescholars.com/innovative-solutions-for-creating-sustainable-cities

I am an idealist and an optimist. My rose coloured glasses lead me to think that there is nothing we can’t solve if we put our collective minds to it. In our new book: Innovative Solutions to Creating Sustainable Cities, we provide many examples of how we as members of communities can solve some important issues.  

I love the European Cities and Town Charter on Sustainability issued in 1994:

“in the course of history, our towns have existed within and outlasted empires, nation states, and regimes and have survived as centres of social life, carriers of our economies, and guardians of culture, heritage and tradition… Towns have been the centres of industry, craft, trade, education and government… sustainable human life on this globe cannot be achieved without sustainable local communities.”

What happened to this ideal? Why did we develop silos and stop working as a community on solutions?

There are companies and cities who understand that leap and transformational innovations are the new way of life, and that they need to form alliances with competitors, governments, social enterprises, and customers to become more sustainable. They recognize for example that you cannot launch electric buses without agreeing with competitors and suppliers on common platform technologies to recharge batteries.

Collaboration is difficult, especially when your competitor is sitting across the table, but it is becoming the new normal and it may be the only way to afford the changes that we need at the community level.

The environment these days require a more integrated and holistic approach to governance. Problems are linked – socio-economic challenges such as poverty, waste, and data rights require a multi-faceted and coordinated approach. They cannot be solved by governments and NGOs alone, we need more engagement and new perspectives. Real solutions will increasingly come from the quadrule helix (governments, academia, industry & citizens) coming together with a variety of new tools and approaches. It is the way of an innovation economy.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals are a good place to think about where we want to get to. They spell out some undeniable rights to food, housing, clean air and water, good jobs, and safe environments. They are higher level goals than what is typically thought to be city initiatives, but they cannot happen without cities and their stakeholders taking a more active role.

For example, we cannot make a significant dent on the workforce displacement that has started to occur in our communities as a result of digitalization (AI, robotics, big data processes), as much as 22-27% (forecasted by McKinsey and the Royal Bank of Canada). Unless educational institutions, employers and other community organizations get together and talk about new strategies that will enable current and future workers to adapt to changing workplaces, we will need to recruit internationally to fill the void and deal with an increasing number of workers who do not have what they need to find jobs. (According to McKinsey), we will see growth in Health, STEM, Arts, and Business; but also job decreases in office support, production work, food and community services.  The Information and Technology Council of Canada point to significant opportunities in data science, AI, cybersecurity, automation, and cloud architecture. And overall, there is an overarching need for more soft skills such as teamwork, conflict management, self-leadership, and critical thinking.

New transformational ideas such as autonomous vehicles, open data and data rights need a diversity of people and ideas to execute. Solving these broader community impact developments need city-level engagement and planning. But they will be better solved and executed with broader engagement. We have used mandates, IP protection, and division of powers as excuses not to aggregate them into a strategic vision that we collectively execute. We need to start considering the way forward in this environment of disruptions, and rethink old ideas or historical ways of dealing with issues. For example on growth and development – how much development do we need and at what cost? It begins with ‘humans’ getting together to talk about solutions and finding pathways through organizations and collective efforts to implement ideas.

I interpret the smart city as one that uses digital technologies as a tool to fix problems. It is the incremental innovation strategy that arrives at some improvements, but it does not transform the city in any way. Smart traffic lights may improve traffic flow, but it does not solve congestion, accidents, or parking problems. Real progress will happen when we think more intelligently about how we solve the evolving challenges of the city. When we take the innovations of others and reverse engineer them to meet the conditions in our own backyards. When we stop being fixated on the technology itself and become more focused on building teams and networked nodes of divergent and congruous stakeholders who will work on projects then successfully integrate relevant organizations, citizens, and technology solutions.

Our cities are at the centre of ‘craft, trade, education and government’. And sustainable human life on this globe cannot be achieved without sustainable local communities. This is about creating a vision of livable cities, and an engagement plan to achieve it. Cities cannot stop at smart technologies, they must engage in higher level goals to fix a growing set of broader challenges.

We are surrounded by good news and good ideas. We have to move these from a whisper to a shout. Cities such as Barcelona Spain are carving new ground on circular economy concepts. Potentially reducing the flow of goods being transported from outside and working with local entrepreneurs to create local sources of products, re-using waste, and innovating with technologies. Guelph Ontario Canada plans to eliminate hunger. They are gathering academics, food producers, community organizations, and volunteers to distribute food and avoid waste. The examples are out there, we just need to listen, proactively seek them out, or use the collective intelligence in our communities to innovate our own plans.

Traffic congestion as an example is a symptom of more than 80% of us humans as single occupants in cars; of managers who do not want to take the time to change their systems and allow more telecommuting.  Smart lights may move traffic in a steady flow, but what we need are ride sharing programs, pedestrian-oriented cities, greater bike use, greener vehicles, more condensed cities, and more flexibility and systems to allow knowledge workers to work from home. Each problem that we face as a society could be solved in whole or in part through better planning, strategic investments, greater engagement and good will, and shared resources.

It is about paying attention to the right things and thinking about the impact of some of our decisions.  Photo radar may reduce speeding, but it is also an automated system that generates large fines for very little speeding. Is the revenue generated worth the further burden on families that are already heavily indebted? Could it contribute to rising food insecurity particularly in children? Further contribute to rising mental health problems? All decisions lead to a chain of events that need to be explored. Technology for technology’s sake, or for generating more short-term revenue sources is not the answer. The question we should always ask is whether the short-term gain are worth the long term impacts.

Our inclusive growth and smart to intelligent city chapters are among those that address innovative ideas about development. How we build a more inclusive society where no one is left behind – from using derelict buildings to build vertical agriculture for local distribution, or how we use applications to distribute fresh food and surplus food. It provides examples of new initiatives to generate and share affordable energy. These solution need more than a single sector, they need unconventional stakeholders working together to make them work. Or they need new ways to think about solving problems.

The fabrication city and nature-based solutions address the varied opportunities that are possible if we just do more in refurbishing, parts harvesting, recycling, and rethinking what we bring in from outside.  It means a significant shift in the way that we make people and organizations accountable, in the ways that we encourage self-leadership. If we do not adopt a more integrated approach, we will never get to where we need to be. And make no mistake, we will all be impacted by inaction. Much of it is already in our backyards in the shape of rising crime, drug abuse, mental health problems, loneliness, climate change, abuse of resources, and greater cultural divide.

The condensed city, walkable city, and mobility chapters talk about some of the interesting ways to change policies and practices to make our cities more livable and affordable. Mobility is a key issue for cities, but it is also dependent on the ways that we plan housing and infrastructure. Two chapters on urban governance and financing provide examples of shared mechanisms and roles, and ways that we can rethink how we work together and plan future infrastructure.

Similarly health care and education environments are changing. We need to understand how these systems will need to be better integrated to meet the needs of society. Particularly since technologies such as AI, wearables, and online systems will change the ways that people interact with health care providers and educational institutions.  How we move these institutions from protected silos to more collaborative and knowledge-sharing resources that contribute to solving challenges. At the same time recognizing the people will interact differently with these systems, using more simulations and elearning tools, and sensors to monitor their own health.

It’s fun to be an optimist, I hope that you are too. It is through your voice that change can happen. I dare you to put on your rose coloured glasses and do more than dream about making a difference, go out and gather more that are like us, with or without the same ideas. Pick a challenge and start by talking about the solutions, not the problems, whether it is your idea, an application of an existing idea, or an improvement of a solution applied elsewhere. It’s a fun pastime if you want to keep it to your living room or your boardroom, but perhaps it can escalate to something else: the first step in making a change.

Innovative Solutions to Creating Sustainable Cities is available from Cambridge Scholar at

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/innovative-solutions-for-creating-sustainable-cities