Urban planners, politicians, and real estate developers in most international cities across the globe grapple with the prospect of transforming their metropolis into a smart city. If you work in real estate or any adjacent sector, you’ll know that the concept of smart cities is hot. Yet like many euphoric new trends, the notion of a smart city lends itself to a wide variety of interpretations.

Accordingly, when I recently met one of the digital architects behind the smart city project implementation in the city of Malaga, Spain, I jumped at the opportunity to pick his brain. Rubén Fernández Vela is a Spanish attorney at law, now working in Tokyo as a legal consultant in data protection and privacy, digital law and technology, and smart cities. Here is an excerpt of our conversation.

Rude VC: It seems that the term “smart city” is open to a wide array of interpretation. Could you begin by explaining the definition of a smart city ?

Rubén: The smart city is a large and complex phenomenon that numerous authors and entities have tried to describe based on a series of elements and foundations.

The concept of a smart city was born at the beginning of the last century. Initially, it was about seeking energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions. Nowadays, it is related to the different ideas about the use of information and communication technologies, and the improvement of the lives of citizens, the economy, and the sustainability of the city. Technology is the means to achieve the goal. The goal is the development of a human-centered city.

When we talk about smart cities, we are talking about ideal cities in an ocean of digital ubiquity where information flows, and the citizens are connected to city information to operate in real-time.

An accurate definition of the smart city concept is a city that uses digital technologies to make both their critical infrastructure, as its components and the public services offered more interactive, more efficient, and citizens can be more aware of them.

Rude VC: What inspires municipal officials to want to implement a smart city project or transform their town into a smart city ?

Rubén: According to the DESA (the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs), in the year 2050, the percentage of people who will live in the city will reach 70% of the world’s population. Municipal officials aim to make a direct and positive impact both on the quality of life of citizens, as well as on the environment and the competitiveness of existing companies.

Cities play a fundamental role in the socio-economic development of any nation. They are key drivers of economic growth, innovation, social progress, culture, knowledge, and diversity. A city’s appeal derives from its ability to offer basic services, to guarantee a quality of life, and to facilitate better conditions for business creativity and professional development, competing to attract the best citizens and companies.

A smart city represents the perfect link between the aspirations of administrators, the city council, private organizations, and citizens. The municipal government hopes to gain the trust of its citizens by understanding their problems and needs.

Rude VC: What is the city official trying to accomplish by becoming a smart city ?

Rubén: The “smart city” aims to achieve efficient management of all areas of the city (urban planning, infrastructure, transport, services, education, health, public safety, energy, etc.), satisfying the needs of the city and its citizens. For this, technological innovation and cooperation between all social agents and corporations are needed. The city needs: a) technological infrastructure, b) energy strategy, c) management and protection of resources, d) creation of public-private services, e) open government in which your data is accessible, open, and reusable.

The municipality seeks to solve the need to face problems related to citizen management and sustainability that influence transport, public services –such as waste collection–, or the lighting and energy used in the city. That solution is in the use of technology for decision-making, specifically AI, IoT, and Big Data.

A smart city is a sustainable city. It’s a city that aspires to social innovation, efficient mobility, and transport formulas, energy innovation (zero carbon), an open government, and a collaborative economy.

A successful smart city employs technology to improve the lives of citizens, improve the provision of services, develop new forms of communication between the administration and citizens, achieve sustainable development, realize economic savings for the government, and fostering the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Rude VC: What is the process for thinking about implementing a smart city ?

Rubén: The process of implementing a Smart City is not an easy task. It requires time and effort from the different actors involved. It requires leadership and vision that provide benefits to the government, citizens, and public and private organizations.

The design of the implementation of a Smart City typically encompasses the following stages:

1. Team building phase:
2. Diagnostic phase
3. Design of solutions with a multi-sectoral perspective
4. Development of an execution plan
5. Integration of associations
6. Evaluation and iteration

When applying the “smart city” philosophy, we must take into account several factors such as size, personality, capacity for evolution, growth, and adaptation of the municipalities. It is a transformation following principles of sustainable development, applying efficient management at all scales, and implementing a technological ecosystem to all of them. These needs will only be saved through cooperation between citizens, the administration and government, and the corporations involved.

Rude VC: How is the general public engaged in a smart city development project ?

Rubén: Urban centers are platforms where people live and work, develop their activity within the framework of the many services they provide, are the center of most of the energy resources, and have a great impact on the development of countries.

A “smart city” must have a transparent government, as an actor that actively listens and is in full contact with citizens. For this, digital technologies are essential for the evolution from a “conventional” to a “smart” city.

The city itself becomes as a human-centered platform, with its citizens at the core. With a smart city, citizens gain the ability to access their city’s information systems in real-time, enabling them to make the better decisions thanks to the data provided and, importantly, to influence the decision-making processes of the municipal government.

Enabled through digital technologies, smart cities turns their citizens into active agents, co-creators of the society in which they belong. It is the citizens who know best the environment in which they live and it is they who will be able to propose and co-decide together with the government and the administration the fate of their neighborhoods and cities.

Rude VC: What concerns or fears might the general public hold about a smart city project ? How are such concerns assuaged ?

Rubén: The privatization of cities, the digital divide, data protection and electronic privacy, and access to quality data are some of the most common concerns that the general public may hold about smart city projects.

Disclosing the identities and agenda of all private actors involved in the project, and involving cities from the conception stage are critical to pre-empt potential concerns from citizens.

Without equality in access to IT, citizens will not be able to access the smart city, largely losing their identity. In the design and planning of the smart city, integration and education programs are needed.

The smart cities’ implementation projects need to respect the laws of privacy by design and privacy by default in terms of data protection.

Finally, to develop data-based services and create a data-driven economy in a smart city, data needs to be accessible to all sectors of the population, especially to citizens and startups. For this, it is essential to create policies for the reuse of data, transparency, open government, electronic administration, etc., in addition to the development of APIs and websites that facilitate working with open-source data.

Rude VC: How is the data of the constituents of a smart city properly protected ?

Rubén: In a smart city, the government model should be one whose core philosophy is open source:

Open public data +
Transparency & accountability +
Participation of all social actors +
Collaboration with digital technology

Data must be subject to proactive transparency and therefore openness through open-source standards and parameters. Open data is a guarantee of information – real and effective – for citizens under free and public standards. That is why when we talk about Smart City, we must understand it as an open-source data hub, complying with the regulations of privacy (Privacy by design and by default, data protection, transparency, reuse of public data, etc.).

Rude VC: What time horizon should a city official consider when implementing a smart city project ?

Rubén: The time to implement a Smart City project will depend on the specific situation of the city.

In any case, implementing a “Smart City” is a task that takes time and effort. It is a long-distance race that requires leadership and vision that bring benefits to all the parties involved in the project: the government, its citizens, and the corporations. This is achieved through public-private collaboration between government, residents, businesses, and the private sector that will foster innovative solutions that lead to results relevant to cities.

Rude VC: Is implementing a smart city project always a radical and complete overhaul, or can it be done incrementally ?

Rubén: Implementing a “smart city project” should never be a radical and complete overhaul. It has to be done incrementally. Creating a Smart City project involves a structured process and often pilot projects. 

Incidentally, The concept of smart city should not be confused with the simple fact of making improvements in the city through technological methods, since the Smart City has to meet a series of requirements and not be focused solely on a specific aspect independent of the rest. A smart city is a system of systems. This new term is presented as the city of the future under an ecosystem based on innovation, which therefore requires collaboration and cooperation between public and private entities.

The implementation of a smart city project should be done incrementally, covering all aspects of the city.

Rude VC: Can a smart city implementation be accomplished without disrupting the ongoing daily life of that city ? Or rather, is a smart city implementation more easily accomplished in a contained and controlled environment ?

Rubén: The implementation of a smart city project does not necessarily have to interrupt daily life in the course of a city, because it is a gradual and staggered process.

Implementing a smart city in a contained and controlled environment seems contrary to the concept of “smart city” as a system of systems that integrates government, economics, the lives of the city, society in general, movement, and the environment being the nexus of union technology.

However, we cannot generalize; each case is unique. For example, Tokyo, with its 23 neighborhoods, presents an ideal scenario for implementing smart cities projects in controlled environments (understood as each of the neighborhoods) as they have the autonomy and power for the development of each of the six pillars of smart cities.

Rude VC: Could you provide characteristics specific to Malaga’s Smart City implementation ?

Rubén: Some characteristics specific to Malaga’s Smart City implementations are:

• Installation of smart wind and solar street lamps, which also regulate the intensity of light the presence of people to turn them on or not.
• The city uses the energy it obtains from garbage and sewage to sell it to the electricity grid. Digital meters are used to monitor water and light management.
• Installation of smart wind and solar street lamps, which also regulate the intensity of light the presence of people to turn them on or not.
• The administration shows the citizen all the personal information collected from the different systems through an online “citizen folder”.
• Development of different applications so that citizens can report problems in the city, make intelligent use of public transport, know and pay for parking, information on the city’s monuments, photos, schedules, reviews, useful telephone numbers, information on the Beaches. In addition to applications to find out job offers, plans for entrepreneurs, etc.
• Disposition of panels in the streets with an infinity of information and interaction.
• Traffic control and public transport are coordinated with an emergency center.
• Lunch of open government, transparency, and open data sites.
• Develop of its fiber optic network among the different public bodies that allows free and exceptional access to the internet.
• Development of a network and a system of electric vehicles for sharing (car and scooter sharing)
• Given the importance of startups in Smart City, different hubs and business accelerators have been created in Malaga to meet the needs of the Malaga smart city.
• The platform for the participation of citizens in government decision-making directly through mobile applications as well as having the possibility of making proposals directly to the government
• Creation of seminars to educate citizens on innovation and technology issues.

Rude VC: Which types of cities in your opinion are best suited to become smart cities ? What characteristics of cities make them eligible to become smart cities ?

Rubén: Although the “smart city” concept is related to large cities that due to their overpopulation and their territorial extension need solutions for all the problems that this causes. Cities or territories with fewer citizens need special treatment because they face the opposite problem: they need to remain attractive so as to not fall into abandon.

It is not about the type of city but rather the true will of the administration of the development of a smart city.

Tokyo has the most exciting setting for the implementation of smart city models. With a population of almost 15 million people (who live or go to work/study every day), divided into 23-Ku, 26-shi, 5 machi, and 8-mura have all the ingredients to develop smart city plans in each administrative unit, in addition to a mega “smart city” that brings together projects that unite all municipalities. Not forgetting the rural areas, now in decline.

Rude VC: Do Smart Cities foster the growth of an innovation ecosystem ?

Rubén: In a Smart city, two elements are always present: innovation and sustainability.

The entrepreneurs and Startups have an essential value in the development of a Smart City. If we understand it as a city in the beta phase, start-ups and innovative organizations whose core is IT and sustainability seem to be the best allies. Numerous market studies support the success of Startups related to Smart Cities. In addition to the possibility of their scalability, replicating their business model in the different smart cities of the world, it is very high.

In summary, smart cities are cities through technology, development plans, and urban planning with the aim of sustainability to improve the day-to-day life of its inhabitants. They are sustainable cities to which technology is applied. A sustainable city implies: a) social innovation, b) transport and mobility, c) energy, e) governance, f) economy and business, and g) environment. By applying technology, we manage to cross, order, and interpret citizens’ data to a) improve the quality of services and citizens’ lives; b) create new applications, c) decrease public expenditure, d) achieve sustainable development.

Smart cities are those committed to their environment, where infrastructures and urban elements are equipped with technological solutions that make easy the life of the citizen.