The path to tomorrow’s smart cities might not look the same for every municipality, but all communities should feel empowered to make steady progress toward a fairer, safer, more efficient and sustainable future.
Practices
Markets
Priorities
Whenever a city improves upon its existing infrastructure to incorporate more data-driven or connected technologies, it becomes “smarter.” This advancement, coupled with the Complete Corridors philosophy, is helping communities solve their transcending challenges in equity, sustainability and resource management.
We’ve brought together our top experts in water, transportation, energy, data and climate resilience and asked them to dream up a world in which cities of the future are optimized for everything from faster bus routes to fully connected microgrids. We’ve broken down their advice in six simple steps.
1. Tackle the easy stuff first
Start by reviewing your current policies and procedures to see what quick preventative measures you can take to decrease the generation of waste. Encourage your community to make daily changes that promote sustainability: taking five-minute showers, using recyclable shopping bags, carpooling, limiting overbuying at the grocery store, building compost piles for food waste, replacing leaky faucets, and other small changes that can add up to a big difference.
Transportation planning expert Davonna Moore adds that these don’t have to be huge lifts. “For decision-makers, small-to-medium-scale changes like curb management implementation and organizing delivery at non-peak times would allow your city to run more efficiently and better poised for future investments,” she says.