“Many city governments around the world are encouraging agriculture in urban areas—so long as it stays small scale and doesn’t challenge the status quo. Mike Duff argues that cities must learn to embrace ‘urban ag’ social movements as a way to engage citizens in shaping their own cities, and encourage these movements to scale up to reduce the power of ‘big food’ businesses to subvert planning processes. The key challenge will be regulation—cities should create a new land use designation entitled ‘urban agricultural use’ to accommodate a healthy balance between urban lifestyles and urban farming.”

“Governments don’t lead revolutions. People do. The saying ‘Necessity is the Mother of Invention’ sums the scenario up, because most often it’s the individuals, communities and nations experiencing the toughest challenges that pioneer the most radical innovations.”

“Today, municipalities and citizens more than ever need to understand their patterns of behavior and how to change them. Whether it is in water consumption, traffic patterns or energy use, they need new technologies to enable the change. Our sustainability initiatives in Dubuque prove that, by using advanced analytics, community engagement, and cloud computing, government officials and citizens will have access to real-time data to alter their patterns of behavior, which will save them money. This water sustainability pilot case is a template for communities worldwide that seek to conserve various types of resources.”

“For a city to offer smart services and save money, its departments have to work closely together, share their data and use a common IT infrastructure. London, for instance, has different payment systems for public transport, bicycle hire and toll roads. Such fragmentation is costly and makes it more difficult to come up with new offers (say, reducing the congestion charge for those who often hire a bicycle). But getting a city’s islands of bureaucracy to work together tends to be difficult, says Mark Cleverley of IBM, who helps governments and cities develop plans for smart systems. The problem is not just that departments often jealously protect their data, something experts call TEP, as in “turf, ego and power”. Officials also lack a common language or generally agreed criteria for a smart city—which is a big issue, too, for the many companies that are usually involved in a project. “It’s hard to build a business case if people don’t understand each other,” says Simon Giles, in charge of strategy for smart technologies at Accenture. Things are easier in Singapore. Ministries and agencies compete for reputation and resources, but they also co-operate closely on implementing master plans such as “A Lively and Liveable Singapore: Strategies for Sustainable Growth”, the city-state’s roadmap to becoming smart. That helps to explain why Singapore will probably be the first city to combine its various smart systems into a single one.”