Making the Leap From Smart Projects to Smart Cities

"Smart Cities" are a catchall phrase for using technology to make cities more resilient, responsive, and financially solvent. A recent piece in Scientific American notes that it doesn't always work out that way, at least not yet, as efforts often fail to account for local, government and socioeconomic conditions.

A smart lighting system here and a traffic signal timing system there are isolated, not part of a comprehensive, integrative system. Kendra Smith writes:

"The current reality of smart cities is that there aren’t any. At the end of the day, most so-called smart cities are just cities with a few or several standout smart projects."

The article asks important questions like how a smart city affects social justice, what is its true cost, and who decides what the city really needs before any switches get flipped?