How can businesses improve the architecture of Smart Cities?

Photo by Olenka Kotyk on Unsplash

In the architecture of current and future Smart Cities, businesses have the opportunity to play a crucial role. What each of them can bring to the table at a local level, can also bring further value to the wider ecosystem of a smart city.

Urban industries can contribute to or damage the overall activity of a smart city. Leaders today understand that the role their local businesses have can improve the digital and physical structures of the city. Connected systems can improve our planet, the places we live in, and our own lives.

There are already a wide range of valuable examples in the world, which combine the advantages of existing physical infrastructures with the advances of the virtual world, such as pairing up roads or public transit systems with sensors or other AI tech in order to increase efficiency, reduce pollution and promote sustainability, which ultimately also results in reducing costs for the local authority and tackling wider issues including pollution and, by extension, public health and quality of life, making our communities a more attractive place to live in.

The notion of a “smart city” is a helpful way to illustrate the ways in which we can implement integrated and comprehensive plans and strategies with great efficiency and natural synergies between governments and businesses. Los Angeles has already advertised a series of benefits for its smart city plan, such as a 10% reduction in travel times, reduced electricity usage and annual savings thanks to street lamps switching to more efficient LED lights, cleaner streets, improved connectivity, and many more. It’s a truly ambitious plan that sets a good urban example for others to follow.

“To be a true Smart City, both the urban landscape needs to be ‘smart’ and the residents/businesses need to be online and connected. While internet connectivity used to be luxury, it has become an essential part of competing in the modern Digital Economy,” the report also says.

And as each business in the community tries to do its part, adapt, evolve, become more efficient and connected to citizens’ needs, the city altogether can strive further, improving lives and empowering businesses to be more successful in today’s world and beyond.