Intelligent - rather than smart - cities can address the roots of urban challenges

Mon. Jun. 10, 2019

The term “smart city” has gained in popularity, but the label still conjures the use the technologies to solve operational problems. Rather, cities are complex and need intelligent, transformative and engaged efforts.

Sustainable development goals such as in health, housing, education, energy, hunger and happiness have always been urban issues. The 1994 European Cities and Town Charter on Sustainability says it well:

“in the course of history, our towns have existed within and outlasted empires, nation states, and regimes and have survived as centres of social life, carriers of our economies, and guardians of culture, heritage and tradition… Towns have been the centres of industry, craft, trade, education and government… sustainable human life on this globe cannot be achieved without sustainable local communities.”