Why smart cities fail? how understanding context can save your city’s future

Abstract

Cities throughout the world are changing.To respond to these changes, Mayors and other urban policy makers areinvesting heavily in innovations aimed at generating value for those who live and work in their cities; in a word, theyare working to make their cities "smarter". Increasing pressures to make a city smarter as a way to respond to thesechanges are causing many city leaders to look to the world’s "smartest cities" for best practice solutions. Many ofthese solutions are based on "smart city technologies" and are driving significant investments. According to theInternational Data Corporation, a consultancy, smart city technology spend in 2016 was $80 billion, with $135 billionprojected by 2021. The less told story is that many of these investments go to waste. So why do many of the smartcity investments and solutions that prove widely successful in some cities, fail in others?