Monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals in cities: Potentials and pitfalls of using smart city data

Abstract

Smart city strategies highlight the potential to generate new type of data through new technology, for example crowdsourced data. Based on an empirical study, we show the potentials and limits of using new data for monitoring urban sustainability and especially the Sustainable Development Goals.The latest debate on smart cities and sustainability is underpinned by the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and their accompanying Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which place urban data and monitoring systems at the forefront. Therefore, there is a strong need to assess the data-driven capabilities that will help achieve the SDGs. To fill the capability gaps between existing tools and SDG indicators, new smart city data sources are now available. However, scant indicators and assessment criteria have been empirically validated. This paper identifies some of the challenges alongside the potential of using new local data in urban monitoring systems. A case study of an SDG monitoring platform implementation in a district of Berlin is examined, and the results show that the use of locale-specific, and unofficial data not only improves data availability, but it also encourages local public participation. Based on our empirical findings, we determine that the incorporation of new data for urban sustainability monitoring should be treated as a complex social process.