Prioritize people in building smart cities — city mayors
Intelligent cities may be intertwined with the concepts of data, interconnectivity, and digitalization, but people occupy front and center of these.
“It’s about improving their lives the most efficient possible way,” said Maria Josefina “Joy” G. Belmonte, mayor of Quezon City.
The Quezon City government has rolled out a market one-stop shop within its E-Services Portal, which allows vendors to reserve and pay rent for a public market stall.
“[It’s] like the way one would select and pay for seats at a movie theater,” Ms. Belmonte said at the Liveable Cities Philippines forum on Wednesday.
“Hawkers are also registered, which provides the city with data to craft sustainable programs for street vendors,” she added.
Quezon City residents who are not capable of navigating online systems, meanwhile, can seek assistance from government personnel stationed at the 74 e-services kiosks around the city.
Over half (56%) of the world’s population live in cities today. This proportion is expected to reach around 66% by 2050. According to the World Bank, building cities that “work” and are green, resilient, and inclusive require intensive policy coordination and investment choices.
Insights gained from data can be used to plan a city’s development and manage its assets and resources, said Ma. Celeste Dy-Donato, professional services director of Geodata Systems Technologies, Inc., which provides smart mapping and spatial analytics solutions.
“Becoming an intelligent city is not done overnight, but I believe everyone is in different stages of this already,” she said.
She noted that the common traits of every intelligent community are forward-thinking leadership, data-driven decision-making, real-time awareness, collaboration across departments, and civic engagements.
“Data is what fuels an intelligent community,” Ms. Donato said, adding that “pooled intelligence enables successful operations.”
Civic engagement is likewise very important, she noted.
“When this happens, the community becomes another source of useful information to inform decisions.”
Alfredo B. Benitez, mayor of Bacolod City in Western Visayas, said that cost is the major hurdle of cities aspiring to become intelligent communities.
Bacolod City is leveraging public-private partnerships (PPP) to “at least front-end some of the costs, and eventually pay them over time,” he noted.
He also said an intelligent city is the way to go when it comes to ease of doing business.
“We are known as the City of Smiles. We want to have an environment where people feel good,” Mr. Benitez said. “We will be accepting a PPP proposal with just one proponent handling all of our requirements for an intelligent city.” — Patricia B. Mirasol
