Smart City Leaders Need Better Governance Tools

Interest in smart cities has taken off like wildfire. Cities of all sizes navigate the challenge — growing demand for new constituent services within increasingly constrained budgets — and try to identify potential solutions to their cities' woes. The combination of critical urban pain points and vendor enthusiasm to address them has resulted in a proliferation of point solutions: emergency response integration, traffic congestion alleviation, waste and water management, smart buildings, smart grids, etc. The key to being a truly smart city, however, lies in bringing these systems together, creating an integrated approach to city governance as a whole. City leaders are embracing governance tools, and we expect that adoption will grow. The opportunity for tech vendors and service providers lies in facilitating smart governance — offering cloud and shared services models for business applications, providing integration and cloud management services, and generally facilitating the coordination and collaboration among city departments and city leadership.