City authorities are working around the clock to utilize advanced data and communication tech to breathe life into their smart city initiatives. Investments are being directed to accomplish everything for improving regional decision-making with the help of big data analytics, to enhancing the efficacy of governmental services, to enabling the inclusion of all citizens in localized governance. 

These smart city initiatives vary with regards to their focus and funding allocation, and they are proliferating smaller communities such as Caldwell, Idaho, and large metro cities such as New York City. Although, these efforts have faced significant challenges. This has caused consistent failures and false starts. Shockingly, we have discovered that such obstacles are only in relation to intricacy of the tech itself, but rather the long prevailing and continuous obstacles connected with navigating the very complicated social and organizational processes that underlie the smart city environment. To put it in different words, to build smart cities, what’s required is not an increased number, or even enhanced tech, but rather societal change, evolution, and enhanced methodology with regards to organization. 

A few cities have put out frameworks to surpass these organizational obstacles. However, several continue to falter, with the outcome of smart city initiatives losing vigor, shutting down, or restructuring at a fundamental level. Several of these cities have lost time, money, and their citizen’s trust. 

A latest RAND study on smart city initiatives featured a research team entering into a dialogue with city official such as chief digital officers, chief data officers, and directors of performance management from all across the continental United States of America. During these interviews, authorities rarely attributed tech obstacles as being their biggest hurdle. Rather, they consistently detailed the struggle to navigate tensions in between the businesses that produce and sell the technology on the market, citizens who utilize it, and government authorities that procure, deploy, and administer the technologies. 

City authorities and the Private Sector 

The city authorities that were conversed with consistently held the belief that tech organizations were directing procurements towards costly products and inequitable solutions that probably not meet the requirements of the local communities involved. Also, when efforts in engaging tech firms with regards to data collection and sharing policies were made, the organizations were reticent to share vital information with municipal authorities. Finally, city authorities confirmed that an additional point of contention propped up during negotiation of agreements to sustain projects past the pilot stage, especially on areas in relation to addressing responsibilities for maintaining business ownership with regards to the project and for the funding of operations and maintenance. 

City Governance and Local Residents 

Throughout cities, citizens seem to have grown wary regarding the absence of transparency and communications between city hall and citizens with regards to the local smart city efforts. City authorities stated that citizens were typically demonstrating frustrations when they discovered that their cities deployed infrastructure that was opposed to their primary values, such as privacy and equity. They also felt they weren’t tackling localized requirements, or that they weren’t accessible or user-friendly – two critical considerations. Also, while a few community groups demonstrated enthusiasm with regards to specific smart city initiatives, many view efforts such as autonomous street cars as a threat to their incomes and socioeconomic wellbeing. 

Inside city hall, tech managers typically find themselves in isolation from the purchase process, fostering a negative disconnect amongst users and buyers that curbs the flow of information. Roles that have been developed to be cross-functional, such as chief innovation officer, often found themselves in isolation with reduced decision-making capabilities. 

The point to be observed here is that investments in infrastructure components and tech alone isn’t adequate in the challenge of developing functional smart cities. There is the requirement for concentrated and focused efforts towards facilitating the integrating of infrastructure into the complicated stakeholder ecosystem that distinguishes every U.S.A. community, notwithstanding size and budget. Making smart cities functional will need reconciliation and/or the alignment of opposing interests of various stakeholders and making targeted trade-offs between stakeholder goals and targets. Only by achieving this can communities in the United States of America really unveil the true possibilities of smart city efforts.