Building better cities together : Citizens benefit from the co-creation of smart cities

25% of citizens say smart city initiatives should be a public/private partnership

Digging deeper, however, the same survey finds that citizens who say their city will have an impact on their daily lives are more likely to prefer public-private partnerships (73% vs 59% and 58% for national and city-led initiatives respectively). Similarly, those who think that there should be more smart city initiatives, hold the same view (89% vs 82% and 81% respectively). (Figure 1)

"Governments need to understand what a private business is interested in, and shape public-private collaborations accordingly, to draw the best from both parties." Richard Sharp, a principal of Arup

"Creativity doesn't happen in isolation," observes Richard Sharp, a principal of Arup, a global firm of designers, planners, engineers and consultants, who leads the management consulting business for the company in Australasia. It is one reason, he says, that cities create innovation precincts, often in partnership with businesses and universities. "Innovation is a fragile process and needs a nurturing environment." In fact, developing co-working initiatives as part of smart city strategies is a trend. "We do this so we can discuss issues and resolve them faster and better," says Setiaji Setiaji, head of Jakarta Smart City.

A meeting of minds?

The notion of a smart city is a combination of an aspiration to improve quality of life and competition in which cities across the region (and globally for that matter) seek to enhance economic development by attracting businesses, skilled people, investment and tourism.

In this equation, there is a clear division of labor, according to Mr Sharp, in which government has a fundamental role to play in framing and facilitating their vision of smart city development. "Government also needs to bring non-economic considerations, such as social—and by extension digital—inclusion," he stresses. "It is easy to push digital initiatives but it is harder to reach a diverse group of citizens with them." On the other side of the equation is the private sector, which is equally integral in smart city development in providing innovative technology solutions motivated by the marketplace for them.

"The government cannot run smart city initiatives itself, we need to collaborate with others, including with the private sector." Setiaji, head of Jakarta Smart City

"As a government, the citizen is our customer," says Mr Setiaji. "Because of that, the public is very important," he adds, after which he says private sector collaboration follows. For instance, he emphases collaboration with telecommunication companies—which hold great amounts of data—that can be used to improve transportation amongst other areas.

Different takes

In the survey, citizens of Auckland (34%) and Melbourne (31%) were most vocal about the need for smart city initiatives to be led by public-private co-operation, in stark contrast to residents in ASEAN cities, such as Ho Chi Minh City (28%), Jakarta (28%), Singapore (26%), Kuala Lumpur (26%), Bangkok (23%) and Manila (22%). (Figure 2) One reason may be the history of public-private collaboration in places such as Melbourne, particularly in transportation, an area where its partnerships have been highlighted by the World Bank. Another reason may be the local culture in which ASEAN countries generally expect governments to take the lead in many areas.

"We've seen a couple of different approaches to smart city development," says Mr Sharp. Generalizing, a top-down approach is more strategic and is more likely to include elements of digital inclusion. A bottom-up approach, by contrast, is a collection of disparate initiatives in search of a strategic framework.

Learning to work together

"There is still a fair amount of learning on how best to work together," Mr Sharp says about public and private sector collaboration when it comes to the development of smart cities. "Governments need to understand what a private business is interested in, and shape publicprivate collaborations accordingly, to draw the best from both parties."

To illustrate the potential, however, he cites work recently done for a large city on their digital strategy for the next decade, taking a whole-ofgovernment approach, meaning that all internal processes were considered in developing an integrated service offering to citizens. To do so, Mr Sharp and his team helped the city create fictional profiles of citizens who represent the city, which combined with data from the local government enabled them to identify the best way to pursue a digital strategy. Once completed, they tested their hypothesis on city executives and officials in a workshop to agree to a set of aspirations before the draft was circulated among residents as part of a consultation process.

A bright future?

Smart cities which are developed in partnership between the public and private sectors have the potential to have a greater impact on the daily lives of citizens, and may drive demand for further initiatives, according to the survey conducted for this research programme. "I definitely see public-private partnerships increasing in this area, no doubt about that," proclaims Mr Sharp. "There is increased pressure on both parties to explore things further."

They include aspirations, such as optimized delivery of services, as well as enhanced economic development, but also new notions of a sharing economy and a continued increase in citizen expectations. "The government cannot run smart city initiatives itself," agrees Mr Setiaji. "We need to collaborate with others, including with the private sector." Smart City Jakarta is therefore putting transparency first. "We believe that if government is more transparent we get more participation," says Mr Setiaji.

Technology-led development in the future must therefore be even more user-centric with more transparency, which will also encourage greater collaboration. "All of those elements are pushing cities to do more and will create more opportunities for the private sector," concludes Mr Sharp.