Smart cities aim to boost citizens’ well-being, promote sustainable environments and optimise public service delivery by leveraging digital technologies. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is expected to contribute to the realisation of smart cities and provide numerous solutions in different areas of urban development from safety and mobility to energy efficiency. Over the last decades, smart city innovations are assisting city leaders deliver more efficient public services, tackle climate change, risk management and become more inclusive. Yet, digitalisation can be disruptive, and create challenges and trade-offs and hidden costs. Smart city initiatives may inadvertently deepen inequalities when they lack transparency and fail to integrate community members and/or do not take into account the diverse needs of people. Thus, a key question is whether investment in smart technologies and digital innovations ultimately contribute to improving people’s well-being and fostering inclusive growth.
That is why in July 2019, the OECD launched the Programme on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth to assess and measure the performance of smart cities and how they contribute to inclusive growth and well-being. Our analysis focuses on how technology is used, as part of a wider urban development policy approach, to help cities function effectively to foster competitiveness and achieve sustainable and inclusive growth. It covers a wide range of urban related areas: mobility, housing, environment, planning, public safety, citizen engagement etc. Since data is central to any smart city initiative, the Programme gives special attention to the management and governance of data to ensure its integrity, safety, privacy, quality and interoperability.
Based on the OECD Principles on Urban Policy, the Programme acts as an enabler towards sustainable and inclusive processes of urbanisation by preparing cities for technological, demographic and environmental change. The Programme analyses the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies to boost smart cities capability to anticipate people’s needs and improve urban planning and management.