Our technology-first approach has failed the city of the future. So-called "smart cities," powered by technology, carry the promise of responding to the great pressures of our time, such as urban population growth, climate instability, and fiscal uncertainty. But by focusing on the cutting-edge technologies themselves and relying on private companies to move forward, we have lost sight of what we even want our cities to achieve with all that tech.

To date, smart city conversations mostly trade in optimism, focusing on images of cities without congestion and smart energy meters on every building. Global publications like this one devote space to specific solutions, while television commercials offer a visual taste of how our cities could look in the years ahead. Marketers fuel the fire by estimating a multi-trillion dollar market within a decade.

At what point do we prioritize the municipality–the actual governance of the city–to make great plans?

To help push the industry forward and achieve those trillion dollar market projections, we need to spend as much time and energy creating policy blueprints as we’ve spent researching and marketing new technologies. Smart policies must match smart technologies.

#### Adie Tomer and Rob Puentes ##### About [Adie Tomer](http://www.brookings.edu/about/programs/metro/staff/tomera) is a senior research associate and associate fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program and a member of the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative. [Robert Puentes](http://www.brookings.edu/experts/puentesr) is a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program where he also directs the program's Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative.

But where do you even begin that kind of process? Each city is fundamentally a different place with unique collections of industries, rules and regulations and culture. That means there won’t be silver bullet solutions to crafting smart city policies. Instead, policy innovators will need to start by sifting through common diagnoses and prescriptions, determining which apply to their specific market. After talking to municipal leaders from around the world, we recommend taking these five steps first:

1. Smart Cities Must Craft an Economic Vision That Includes a Specific Role for Technology

It all starts with cities making a concerted effort to understand who they are and where they want to go. In this respect it makes sense to think of cities like a business. No business can expect to succeed without a business plan, and no city can expect to maximize growth without an economic vision. That means the first step is a bit of self-reflection: smart cities conduct thorough assessments of their strengths and weaknesses, and plan future growth around their key assets and areas for improvement. Edmonton, Canada is a great example of this, where its City Vision 2040 program is a guide for all major decisions.

2. Smart Cities Must Use Technology to Promote a Healthy Economy

Once a city establishes an economic vision, it's critical that technology address the three drivers of any healthy economy.

First, technology must support improved productivity. For example, New York City is using technology to both grow private industries—through major investments like the Applied Science campuses—and to create more efficient government operations. Second, technology must support a more inclusive economy. This means creating opportunities for all citizens and businesses, whether it is through improving digital literacy for underserved populations or promoting open data protocols to foster civic-minded businesses. Third, technology must support a more resilient economy. Cities and their dense populations make them especially susceptible to environmental challenges, and technology like advanced stormwater management can help mitigate those concerns.

>No industry or household in the world will reach their future potential without access to broadband; it is the electricity of the 21st century.

Under this rubric, citywide broadband becomes a required element of any well-mapped economic vision. No industry or household in the world will reach their future potential without access to broadband; it is the electricity of the 21st century. Rolling out broadband also helps hit all three economic drivers, and creates a critical management asset for smart city executives. It’s why future-looking cities like Los Angeles and Barcelona are actively exploring different types of citywide expansions.

3. Smart Cities Must Include an Empowered Municipal Technology Executive

A well-designed economic vision will only succeed if it can be implemented. In many cases this will require city governments to realign their internal structures around new or redefined leadership.

That means recognizing the importance of smart city executives–whether known as a chief technology, innovation, information, or sustainability officer–and requiring collaboration between their office and others on major decisions, especially regarding physical development. Collaboration includes procurement, too. With these new executives continuing old responsibilities like purchasing equipment and contributing to new citywide economic strategies, procurement rules must be updated to reflect modern business practices. Cities must also ensure their technology executives have access to resources to make investments. As in the case of Toronto’s mega waterfront redevelopment, including technology in long-range plans is one surefire way to unlock technology funding.

4. Smart Cities Must Balance Project Size and Appetite for Risk

Smart city marketing tends to focus on citywide investments that will dramatically change how every industry operates and every person lives. And while those kinds of megaprojects are exciting to think about, that kind of scale may be too big for most cities and may overstep the risks city leadership is willing to take.

Smart cities will design projects that fit their political and cultural environment. Smaller scale projects that focus on innovative industries have proven particularly attractive opportunities to roll-out smart city technologies. These so-called innovation districts, like in Boston, are able to generate public support, boost local businesses, and serve as a model for future investments. Scale applies to financing, too, where spreading risk across the public and private sector can create stronger support for major tech investments. Thoughtfully designing projects’ geographic and financial scale can help reduce sticker shock that may scare away top city leaders.

5. Smart City Executives Need Stronger Networks and Improved Communication Tools

Considering how fast the technology sector moves, cities need methods to keep up with the pace–both for their own decision-making and in communicating with their citizens. Networking between city leaders is an invaluable way to share information about what worked (and what didn’t) in other markets. As it stands, there is no formal city-level network to facilitate this kind of exchange. Likewise, too many citizens don’t know what a smart city means to them, creating a major roadblock to building support for what are often expensive capital projects. Smart city executives and their private sector partners need to create a common language that can communicate smart cities’ benefits to the individual.

Rebalancing Our Approach to the Cities of the Future

Even as a nascent idea, the smart city concept warrants the attention it has received. Urban history is clear on the power of innovative infrastructure to change cities’ trajectories. There is no question that digital technologies can continue that trend.

But the way we’ve approached the smart city concept is uneven. Too often, a smart city is whatever each company happens to be selling. That approach can persist because cities are underprepared business partners, looking to get involved either without a long-term plan or the necessary policies to make their vision real.

Fortunately, a focus on policy over technology can begin to address that discrepancy. This will not be an easy endeavor. But the sooner cities and their private sector partners recognize this imbalance, the faster the industry can grow.

Editor: Emily Dreyfuss