Smart and Sustainable Cities

The challenges facing our cities are significant. New governance models are needed. New organisational structures. New technology. New companies. Innovation. New forms of financing. New business models. 

In 2013 Disruptive Urbanism Founder Paula Hirst led a pan European research project with the European Investment Bank into the business models and financing opportunities for smart city projects, integrating technology with new property development, infrastructure, or urban retrofit within European cities, whilst Director of Urban Development and Regeneration at international firm Mazars. 

As part of the research project, existing projects in Europe were explored to understand what the barriers and key success factors were to making projects happen. Interviewees emphasised the need for industry, academia, and government to come together to create the solutions needed, and that acting alone it was not possible. Those who had managed to get projects moving had needed to think and act in unconventional ways. The work showed that whilst such projects are currently thin on the ground, suffer from immense cultural barriers and challenges, alongside issues relating to procurement, governance, and financing, it’s also not rocket science. Through working together to identify the challenges and how they can be overcome, through being open to new ideas, through creating an environment where these can be tested, adapted, and evolve, through sharing knowledge and building capacity, and above all being ambitious and having the confidence and ambition to go for it, this research demonstrated that it is possible for such projects to happen, and therefore that UK cities can achieve ambitions to become successful future cities. In many instances the solutions are already there. We just need to figure out an effective way to implement them.