Smart Cities

Dec 11, 2009
Smart cities: Not only about clean air
By Joel Kotkin


IN TODAY'S parlance, a 'smart' city often refers to a place with a 'green'
sustainable agenda. Yet this narrow definition of intelligence ignores many
other factors - notably upward mobility and economic progress - that have
characterised successful cities in the past.

The green-only litmus test dictates cities should emulate either places
with less-than-dynamic economies, like Portland, Oregon or Honolulu, or one
of the rather homogeneous and staid Scandina- vian capitals. In contrast, I
have determined my 'smartest' cities by looking at not only infrastructure
and liveability, but also economic fundamentals.

These criteria unfortunately exclude mega-cities like New York, Mexico
City, Tokyo or Sao Paulo, which suffer from congenital congestion,
out-of-control real estate prices and expanding income disparities -
symptoms of what urban historian Lewis Mumford described as 'megalopolitan
elephantiasis'.

Instead, today's 'smart' cities tend to be smaller, compact and more
efficient: places like Amsterdam, Seattle, Singapore, Curitiba and
Monterrey. This is not an entirely new notion: Between the 14th and 18th
centuries, modest-sized cities like Venice, Antwerp and Amsterdam nurtured
modern capitalism and created canals and vibrant urban quarters that remain
wonders even today. In the Pacific- centric modern era, smart commercial
cities are increasingly found outside Europe. Indeed, the most likely
21st-century successor to 15th-century Venice is Singapore, a commercially
minded island nation that, like its forebear, is run by an often
enlightened authoritarian regime.

When it first achieved independence in 1965, Singapore's condition was
comparable to other developing cities like Mumbai, Cairo, Lagos or Kolkata.
The island city's neighbours included unstable countries like Vietnam,
Malaysia and Thailand. Its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita ranked
well below that of Argentina, Trinidad, Greece and Mexico.

The country's first prime minister and current eminence grise, Mr Lee Kuan
Yew, was determined to change reality. Today, Singapore, with a population
of less than five million, boasts an income level close to the wealthiest
Western countries and a per-capita GDP ahead of most of Europe and all of
Latin America. Once largely semi-literate, its population is now among the
best-educated in Asia.

To be sure, this enviable achievement was accomplished in an authoritarian
fashion, but much of what Singapore has done must be considered 'smart' by
any reasonable accounting. Strategic investments taking advantage of its
location between the Indian and Pacific Oceans have paid off handsomely:
Today, Singapore's Changi Airport is Asia's fifth-largest, and the city's
port ranks as the largest container entrepot and is the second-biggest in
the world, after Shanghai, in terms of cargo volume.

All these have made Singapore a huge lure for foreign companies, with more
than 6,000 multinationals, including 3,600 regional headquarters, now
located there. For foreign managers, engineers and scientists, largely
English-speaking Singapore offers a pleasant and predictable environment,
particularly when compared with other Asian centres.

At least one recent survey, by the World Bank's International Finance
Corporation, rates Singapore No. 1 in the world for ease of doing business.
Though its growth has been slowed by the recession, the city's close ties
to the resurgent economies of South-east Asia, China and India lead many
forecasters to predict a strong recovery over the next year.

Hong Kong, yet another outpost of British imperialism, has also performed
well. Last year, the World Bank ranked the area No. 3 for ease of doing
business, compared with No. 89 for the rest of China. As long as Chinese
communists allow wider freedoms in Hong Kong than in the mainland, the area
should continue to take advantage of its basic assets, including the
world's third-largest container port, an excellent airport and a highly
skilled entrepreneurial population.

The continuing appeal of Hong Kong was vindicated by the recent decision of
HSBC chief executive Michael Geoghegan to relocate there from London. As
the centre of the world economy continues to shift to Asia while Europe and
America struggle, he is likely to find more company.

Not all the world's 'smart' cities are trading giants like Hong Kong and
Singapore. They also include well-run metropolises, such as the city of
Curitiba. The south Brazilian city is regarded as an innovator in
everything from bus-based rapid transit, used by some 70 per cent of
residents, to its balanced, diverse economic development strategy.

With a population of 3.5 million, Curitiba demonstrates how to achieve the
evolving Brazilian dream without the mass violence, transportation
dysfunction and ubiquitous grinding poverty that plague many other Latin
American metro areas. The city's programme of building 'lighthouses' -
essentially electronic libraries - for poorer residents has become a model
for developing cities worldwide. These are among the reasons Reader's
Digest recently named Curitiba the best place to live in Brazil.

Another similarly 'smart' city in the developing world is Monterrey,
Mexico, which has emerged from relative obscurity and turned itself into a
major industrial and engineering centre over the past few decades. The city
of 3.5 million sits adjacent to the dynamic United States-Mexico border
region and has 57 industrial parks specialising in everything from
chemicals and cement to telecommunications and industrial machinery.

Over the last decade, the area has consistently grown at a faster rate than
the rest of Mexico - or, for that matter, the US. Monterrey and its
surrounding state, Nuevo Leon, now boast per-capita GDP roughly twice that
of the rest of Mexico.

Although hard hit by the current recession, Monterrey seems poised for an
eventual recovery. Dominated by powerful industrial families, the area has
long been business-friendly. It has also become a major education centre,
with over 82 institutions of higher learning and 125,000 students, led by
the Instituto Technologico de Monterrey, considered by some to be Mexico's
equivalent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the California
Institute of Technology.

Of course, 'smart' cities also exist in the advanced industrial world.

Amsterdam, a longstanding financial and trading capital, is home to seven
of the world's top 500 companies, including Philips and ING. Relatively low
corporate taxes and income taxes on foreign workers attract individuals and
companies - one reason why, last year, the Netherlands was the largest
recipient of American investment in Europe. Amsterdam's advantages include
a well-educated, multilingual population and a lack of political
corruption.

Amsterdam's relatively small population - 740,000 in the city and 1.2
million for the entire metropolitan area - belies its strategic location in
the heart of Europe and proximity to the continent's dominant port,
Rotterdam. The city's Schiphol airport, Europe's third-busiest, is only 20
minutes from the centre of Amsterdam, a mere jaunt compared with commutes
to the major London or Paris airports. Schiphol has also spawned a series
of economically vibrant 'edge cities' that appear like more
transit-friendly versions of Houston or Orange County, California.

North America also has its share of smart cities. Although self-obsessed
greens might see their policies as the key to the area's success, Seattle's
growth really stems more from economic reality. In this sense, its boom has
a lot to do with luck - it is the closest major US port to the Asia-Pacific
region, which has allowed it to foster growing trade with Asia.
Furthermore, its proximity to Washington state's vast hydropower generation
resources - ironically the legacy of the pre-green era - assures access to
affordable, stable electricity. The area also serves as a conduit for many
of the exportable agricultural and industrial products produced both in the
Pacific north-west and in the vast, resource-rich northern Great Plains,
linked to the region by highways and freight rails.

As North America's economy shifts from import and consumption towards
export and production, Seattle's rise will be a model for other
business-savvy cities in the West and South. Houston's close ties to the
Caribbean, as well as its dominant global energy industry, thriving
industrial base, huge Texas Medical Centre complex and first-rate airport,
all work to its long-term advantage. Arguably the healthiest economically
of America's big cities, Houston is also investing in - not just talking
about - its green future; last year, it was the nation's largest municipal
purchaser of wind energy.

Another smart town poised to take advantage of an industrial expansion is
Charleston, South Carolina, which has expanded its port and manufacturing
base while preserving its lovely historic core. Once an industrial
backwater, Charleston now seems set to emerge as a major aerospace centre
with a new Boeing 787 assembly plant, which will bring upwards of 12,000
well-paying jobs to the region.

Further inland, Huntsville, Alabama, has long had a 'smart' core to its
economy - a legacy of its critical role in the Nasa ballistic missile
programme. Today, the area's traditional emphasis on aerospace has been
joined by bold moves into such fields as biotechnology. Publisher Kiplinger
recently ranked the area's economy No. 1 in the nation.

With the likely rise in commodity prices over the next decade, Canada also
seems likely to produce several successful cities. Perhaps the best
positioned is Calgary, Alberta. Over the past two decades, the city's share
of corporate headquarters has doubled to 15 per cent, the largest
percentage of main offices per capita in Canada. Although last year's
plunge in oil prices hit hard, rising demand for commodities in Asia should
help revive the Albertan economy by next year.

In their press statements, all these cities make a point of bragging about
being green and environmentally conscious. Yet they have demonstrated their
'intelligence' in other ways - by exploiting their locations and resources
to make savvy business and development decisions. At the end of the day, it
will not be their clean air but their commercial prowess - as has been the
case in history - that will sustain their success in the decades ahead.

The writer is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished
presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University in California.
He is author of The City: A Global History.

FORBES MAGAZINE
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'Smartest' cities in the world
Singapore
Hong Kong
Curitiba, Brazil
Monterrey, Mexico
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Seattle, the United States
Houston, US
Charleston, South Carolina, US
Huntsville, Alabama, US
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

--
- Best, Tan Yinglan