Digital Government, Smart Cities and Sustainable Development

Abstract

While the global population continues to grow, more people are living in cities. In 2018, 55 per cent of the world's population lived in cities. By 2050, this is expected to increase to 68 per cent - almost seven in every ten people will live in cities. If sustainable development is to deliver to all people, urban development plays a critical role. The 'smart city' is now the playbook for resilient, sustainable and liveable cities, and smart technologies are creating daily touchpoints that make both huge and small impacts across all walks of people's lives. Today's cities and tomorrow's smart cities are intricately linked to the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development across its 17 goals. This paper first explores at-a-glance the fundamentals and layers that support smart cities, providing an overview but not a deep-dive into the technicalities. This includes, but not limited to, the policy and infrastructure frameworks, the data ecosystem including open data and big, data, the device level including Internet of Things and mobile devices, and the application level in general. Three dimensions of policy integration in smart city development is suggested, namely: (i) horizontal integration across sectors and disciplines; (ii) vertical integration across different governmental levels as well as linkages between national and local development; and (iii) a whole-of-society approach in smart city development with the engagement of the private sector and civil society. The nexus of smart city goals and the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is then articulated. Building on the key issues identified, a high-level analysis of global and regional metrics in accessing smart cities is done, emphasizing the importance of the cliché - "what's get measured, gets valued".