Building smarter cities

For me, some of the most memorable scenes of 2012 were at the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games. They depicted the urbanisation of the UK over past centuries, as a rural way of life gave way to industrialisation. Urbanisation is now a defining theme of global development. In 2010, for the first time in the world, more people lived in cities than in rural areas. This figure will rise significantly in the years ahead. It’s clear we will need smarter cities if we are to cope. Smart cities is the focus of a business delegation from the UK that is visiting Manila this week. The UK companies include experts in optical fibre networks, architectural design services, mobile networking and telecommunications solutions, e-learning emergency response solutions, ICT consulting and design services, smart energy efficiency technologies, healthcare technology solutions and diagnostics and state-of-the-art electronics manufacturing.

What exactly is a smart city? Trawl the internet, and you find various definitions. For me it certainly evokes images of high technology harnessed to efficient everyday living. It’s also about long term planning. But you might say that smart cities began centuries ago. In times past, the smartest cities were the ones that had strongest walls and defences to keep out attackers, or which were advantageously situated at natural harbours.

Britain has traditionally preferred incremental change to revolution, so the development of our great cities happened in stages rather than one great leap. In London, poor sanitation and public health in the 1850s was addressed by one of the biggest civil engineering projects of the age and the underground installation of sewers. The engineer, Joseph Bazalgette, insisted that the sewers were made more than twice as large as was required so that they would last. Around the same time, Londoners were getting tired of there being too much (horse drawn) traffic on the roads and so the world’s first metro system — the “Tube” — and the biggest rail networks were built. Without these visionary developments, modern day London could not function.

Later developments included public parks designed as “lungs” for the cities and places for people to relax. To combat urban sprawl greenbelt land was created. Later still Garden City and New Town development took people out of crowded inner cities. In recent years, there has even been a move to re-populate British city centers which had become the reserve of offices and shops.

In the UK we now think of a smart city as being a large-scale, urban development which aims to achieve environmental, economic and social sustainability. This can cover everything from managing the assets and operation of the city to better provision of services and information to the inhabitants. Using information technology is a vital new tool. ICT can reduce the need to travel. The amount of power needed to keep the city functioning can be reduced via energy efficiency measures. E-learning and telemedicine can provide better access to education and healthcare services. Sustainable construction and design is not just something that is good for the environment, it can save money and improve the quality of life.

Working in Bonifacio Global City, I see the very process of urbanisation happening before my eyes. The strong economic and population growth that the Philippines will experience in the next 20 years means that city planners and private developers will have a major impact on the level of development and quality of life that can be attained by Filipinos. Finding ways and partnerships that can make our cities smart will be a vital part of it.

(Stephen Lillie is British Ambassador to the Philippines.)