Research from Gartner

Postpandemic Scenarios: The Future of Smart Cities

Communities are facing unprecedented levels of uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. CIOs leading smart city initiatives must prioritize actions that can lead to future positive outcomes, despite the uncertainty. We offer considerations through the use of scenario planning.

Overview
Key Findings

• The impact of the digital divide on society has been fully exposed as a result of the pandemic, which has amplified the shortcomings of smart city initiatives that fail to promote equity and raised uncertainties about the future of projects.
• The immediate impacts of the pandemic on public transportation systems, such as lower ridership and long-term passenger safety concerns, are causing communities to reconsider their smart transportation strategies and future plans.
• Strategic decisions related to supply chains, both in local and national government, present an uncertain future for smart city efforts that were historically dependent on foreign suppliers.
• The importance of the use of data in local government and regional efforts to respond to the pandemic has elevated conversations on privacy, security and societal value.
• Economic impacts of the pandemic on local businesses’ ability to operate have resulted in high unemployment, financial loss and business closures, necessitating innovative approaches to economic restoration.

Recommendations

CIOs leading their communities’ transition to digital government through smart city initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic must:

• Lessen the digital divide by working with political and industry leaders to prioritize smart city initiatives that enable the expansion of networks into underserved communities.
• Provide greater insights to public transportation constituents and providers by implementing or enhancing data-sharing capabilities that enable a safe and sustainable transportation system.
• Reduce risk in smart city portfolios by evaluating vendors’ ability to meet changing supply chain policies and taking necessary mitigation steps, such as changing vendors or adjusting sequencing of projects that meet modified sourcing requirements.
• Engage the community in data governance by adding constituent advisors for input on privacy, security and societal value of data initiatives. Spur smart economic development by leveraging data and service marketplaces to create one-stop shops for starting and growing local businesses.

Analysis

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a fundamental impact on the transformation of local governments into smart cities and intelligent urban ecosystems, forcing the complete reassessment of existing strategies, plans and aspirations.

Gartner has identified common opportunities and challenges that smart cities face based on interaction with government smart city leaders and ecosystem partners and a review of emerging trends.

We recommend scenario planning to explore the opportunities and challenges for smart city initiatives, and for what actions government CIOs can take during the respond, recover and renew phases of the pandemic to reset their approaches to smart city initiatives (see Note 1 and “Tool: Government Scenarios for COVID-19 Recovery”). Scenario planning offers a broader approach to considering possible futures, allowing leaders to find common elements that are practical investment of resources. Table 1 offers a quick summary of the four scenarios.

Table 1: Four Possible Emerging Scenarios for Government

Source: Gartner (July 2020)

This research is a contextualization of Gartner’s government team research on postpandemic scenario planning. Therefore, the two parent notes below should be read to gain full understanding of the insights provided here:

“Postpandemic Scenarios: The Future of Digital Government Transformation”

“Postpandemic Scenarios: The Future of Government IT Services”

Smart City Initiatives

Communities that have been advancing smart city initiatives move beyond siloed Internet of Things (IoT) and data projects to take an enterprise and ecosystem approach to making their cities a better place to live, work and play. Cities have been hit particularly hard during the pandemic, and smart initiatives could be a key to both recovery and future growth.¹ However, the reaction of political leadership will play a significant role in what steps CIOs leading smart city efforts should take. Cities are not only governmental jurisdictions, but are an ecosystem of government, private sector, nonprofits and residents. Decisions related to ecosystem engagement, whether inclusive or exclusive of the ecosystem, could significantly change the trajectory of smart city activities.

The impact of the digital divide on communities’ abilities to support remote learning and work has exposed a significant weakness in smart city efforts related to equity. City leaders, including CIOs, must address this challenge. Whether the outbreaks of COVID-19 are persistent or not, equitable access to commerce and education are essential.

Public transportation is one of a number of smart city areas that have been disrupted by the pandemic. CIOs working on transportation smart city initiatives face new challenges related to rider safety, density of ridership and rider confidence. Short-term financial impacts may become long-term issues if the impact of the pandemic persists. The importance of IoT, data and communications projects to ensure rider safety and confidence may supersede previously planned investments.

The increased attention to the societal value of data during the pandemic has elevated the conversation between government, residents and the private sector. CIOs working on smart city initiatives should help their organization capitalize on this opportunity. They should support new data-sharing efforts and data-driven initiatives, particularly those that span the smart city ecosystem while being proactive about ethical issues (see Table 2).

• Band Leader scenario (limited/inclusive):
• A strong desire for community and regional accountability for smart city advancement requires an ecosystem-driven approach to performance management.
• Smart city leadership will be shared across ecosystem partners based on expertise and priorities.
• Smart city partners across public, private and nonprofit sectors engage in improving the quality of life for residents and visitors through creative funding approaches, such as public-private partnerships that enable a shared approach to risk and reward that drive innovation.
• Trains on Time scenario (limited/exclusive):
• Governments leading smart city projects emphasize the return on investment, whether that be financial, mission or constituent quality of life.
• Smart city innovation is focused on mimicking other communities’ successes as risk-averse government leaders take a fast-follower approach.
• With government as the primary driver of investment, building and maintaining community trust is more essential to continued support for investment in smart city initiatives, requiring both strong community engagement and transparency to gain buy-in.
• Solo Navigator scenario (limited/exclusive):
• Tactical leadership by the government limits smart city activities to those that are essential for gaining efficiencies, often limiting them to siloed IoT or data projects.
• Resource constraints cause a focus on minimal viable citizen services and limit community engagement, resulting in gaps between smart city services and resident experiences.
• Data-driven smart city initiatives primarily leverage local services and IoT data, hindering regional standardization and collaboration.
• Tool Belt scenario (extended/inclusive)
• Smart city innovation is often led by the private sector, particularly where government budgets are negatively impacted by the response to the pandemic, putting cities in a reactionary, rather than leading, position.
• Ecosystem-driven smart city services that are implemented via fee-based models result in greater inequities between digital “haves” and “have nots.”
• Collaboration between municipalities on regional issues, such as transportation or health, is focused on data sharing for delivery of existing services, not smart-city-led transformation.

Table 2: Key Comparisons and Commonalities for the Future of Smart City Initiatives

Source: Gartner (July 2020)

Recommendations

CIOs leading their communities’ transition to digital government through smart city initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic must:

• Expand data-sharing programs, such as open data and data exchanges, to enable ecosystem-driven smart city initiatives by developing a data governance framework.
• Improve smart city outcomes and maximize the innovation generated by the private sector by advocating for smart city governance to be moved outside of the government.
• Drive continued smart city growth by leveraging alternative funding approaches, such as public-private partnerships and tax incremental funding.
• Utilize new funding, such as economic stimulus packages, to create both infrastructure and data-driven smart city projects that can improve health initiatives including healthy living, transportation and education.
• Grow the digital economy by including equity as a pillar of smart city initiatives.
• Adjust or create smart city key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect changing priorities by realigning them based on input from city leaders, ecosystem leaders and the public.
• Establish digital marketplaces that enable the exchange of data and services to facilitate economic growth.

Source: Gartner Research Note G00730677, Bill Finnerty, Refreshed 4 November 2019, Published 21 July 2020