Introduction

Imagine a city where subway cars connected to each other, synchronizing transfers based on average transport time between arrival of one train and the departure of another; where streetlights varied in brightness based on ambient light and population presence, saving the city millions of dollars and decreasing energy requirements; where your phone could direct you to the nearest parking spot to your next meeting.

For years, smart city vendors, engineers of many stripes, and thought-leading urbanists have been telling us a wonderful story about the smart cities to come. These stories are filled with efficiencies and savings, targeted and personalized services, frictionless interactions and payments, and infrastructure that learns and adapts to changing usage and needs. We are not there yet—important technologies required for this vision at scale remain just over the horizon. And some of the challenges are as much political and cultural as technical—how to deliver last mile fiber effectively in many places,¹ for example, is still an open question, as is the challenge of automating or computerizing aging and poorly maintained infrastructure.²

But the smart city is no longer purely science fiction either, and building ever smarter cities is a major priority globally. More than 26 smart cities are expected to be established by 2025; Singapore wants to become the world’s first “Smart Nation.”³ Yet, the technology needed to build smarter cities and nations carries major risks. As security expert Bruce Schneier has observed, when “smart” can translate loosely to “hackable,” this future takes on some new connotations.⁴

But the smart city is no longer purely science fiction either, and building ever smarter cities is a major priority globally.

Despite increasing concern from the information security community, it is far from clear that even the smartest of U.S. cities are in a position to deal with the full range of new risks that the technology may bring. The required financial, social, security, operational, legal, and policy innovations needed for smart cities to deliver on their aforementioned promises do not appear to be moving at the pace of innovation of the technology.⁵ It is important that city managers, activists, engineers, and policymakers recognize that many of the most important hurdles to achieving the promise of the smart city will not be technological problems.

This paper will look at smart cities with a critical eye, examining this promise of a smart city and asking the questions we will have to wrestle with as technology becomes more and more integrated into our daily life in cities, states, and countries. We will also highlight some of the areas that need further attention if we are to continue the rapid deployment of smart city technology in our cities, states, and countries. We hope that this paper informs the range of stakeholders in smart cities—from the engineers who build the technology, to the city leaders who are responsible for making the best decisions for their constituents, to the activists and policymakers who look at the various aspects of what a smart city will mean in implementation.