There’s a reason we keep coming back to the topic of Smart Cities.
Like the cities themselves, the concept of a smart city is constantly evolving.
What’s been most prevalent is the shift in our understanding of what a Smart City should be. No longer are these only places that should be efficient, they need to be places that have a vibrancy and identity as well.
The growth in this realisation is what’s making this movement so exciting now more than ever.
Whilst many people care about efficiency in their daily lives, it’s only one part of the puzzle. Efficiency alone is without a soul. Liveability is efficiency with a human angle.
As our lead engineer Heath fervently shared in a recent Smart Community Podcast interview:
“All the technical talent in the world won’t matter if you can’t make the people care”.
Once upon a time — when concerns for environmental impact were lower down on the urban planner’s agenda — knocking down the old to make room for the new was the standard and even the smart thing to do. Today, liveable, smart cities are those that consider the sustainability of their people and places, particularly in the long-term.
If you’re like me and your first impression of smart cities was installing sensors in carparks and introducing autonomous vehicles (if that is to ever happen any time soon), then you were also deceived by the glossy marketing that doesn’t do justice to a city’s human-centred complexities. Cities, like humans, are messy - but that’s okay. It’s up to the creativity and collaboration of a city’s community to nut out how the places we live, work and play in can be a liveable, organised mess.
One city’s mess is another city’s mural. The intriguingly eclectic ‘Seattle Gum Wall’ has become something of a grunge icon.
Key to this understanding of the disorganised nature of urban spaces is that every city, town, suburb, and neighbourhood is unlike the other. As such, its habitants have different ideas as to what constitutes liveable for them. We can’t cram Newcastle into a Copenhagen, Tel Aviv or Adelaide shaped box, but we can keep our eyes open to what can work and cherry-pick in moderation and only where appropriate.
The American Institute of Architects understood this well when they developed the following definition: “Livability is best defined at the local level. Broadly speaking, a liveable community recognises its own unique identity and places a high value on the planning processes that help manage growth and change to maintain and enhance its community character.”
Smart cities can (and should) be a little bit silly — recognising why we should embrace this is key to becoming a cool and confident global city. Pictured is an interesting design choice at Queens Wharf in Newcastle, NSW | Image: Michael Hearne
Everyone has different standards of what defines comfortable, safe, and enjoyable living. Whilst efficiency assists in achieving some of these standards, other strategies need to be employed to make our cities not only logistically intelligent but socially intelligent as well. Intelligence of this kind is rooted in an understanding of self; for a city, this means acknowledging its points of difference. Recognising the innovative work of the health, manufacturing, creative industries, and small business communities of our city and advocating accordingly.
Further than this, the work bubbling away at the grassroots is where our cities more closely reflect and connect with the community. In Newcastle and the Hunter Region, the roots are strong and far-reaching.
With over 50 events squeezed into the one fortnight, the Hunter Innovation Festival (HIF) was a recent testament to this. Over its decade long history of voluntary contribution, it’s been the passion, collaboration and commitment of a few that has created something of a local legacy. This year’s festival created jobs, secured funding and support partnerships and promoted the region’s industry, education, business, and entrepreneurial sectors.
The festival also reassessed its role as a promotional tool for innovation in the Hunter by welcoming new people to the meeting rooms, bars, and co-working spaces — particularly within the arts and greater creative industries. This was a welcome move by HIF, as the city’s creative community is something that has been equally crucial and committed to the quality of life in the city of Newcastle.
In our work within the community, whether it be providing a meeting space for IoT enthusiasts, giving park go-ers the controls over lights in the trees, or educating kids in how data can help us monitor the health of our environment; the blood, sweat, and ideas are worth the effort.
But there’s a but.
In my experience working alongside engineers, I’ve come to be aware of their deep-seated, project-loving dispositions. Equally, in my experience working alongside professionals in the arts and events industries, their dedication to a project just for the love of getting their hands dirty is a constant inspiration. Those who pursue projects that create something unique for their community are outnumbered by those who aren’t.
“I think one of the emerging trends is that the communities are unequally aided by champions, by people that put their neck on the line and push and push to represent the people that they’re representing”
— Heath Raftery, Principal Engineer at NewieVentures
This imbalance creates a lot of pressure on the smart city do-ers who are only human; they can only give without receiving something in return for so long. This doesn’t need to look like a $5000 cheque to keep their costs at bay (although this helps and the government has taken some encouraging initiative to give to the grassroots). Neither does this mean we all need to start volunteering 10 hours out from our workweek to start the next community-centred project. Instead, we need to weed away the tall poppies from our city’s garden bed and endorse the moving and shaking our grassroots community give so generously to our city.
If we don’t make the effort to promote the passionate work of the critical mass then the delightful, liveable, uniquely Newcastle qualities rooted in our smart city may descend into an inefficient attempt at someplace that it’s not.
Local champions we’re supporting this month
It’s a bit of a no-brainer to not give a shout-out to the independent awards ceremony that does so much to support the burgeoning innovation taking place in the Hunter region. For those involved in the broad umbrella of ‘Digital Creativity’, applications for this year’s awards close on the 16th of August.
Hunter iF
Hunter iF is an independent connector for innovation and new business development in the Hunter region. The organisation is a conduit to support services and programs that aim to help new and innovative businesses on their pathway to success at different stages of their innovation journey. Although the organisation has only been officially in action in under 12 months, they have committed significant support for projects that have included this year’s Hunter Innovation Festival.
Make It Made It Conference
Although the School of Creative Industries converged two years ago, the world-class entrepreneurship of Newcastle’s creative class has long been established. Newcastle mural and sign painting artist Brett Piva developed the part conference, part social networking event to promote the innovative work of local and national creative professionals. From its humble beginnings five years ago, the Make It Made Conference has grown into a highly anticipated industry event that this year’s event combined with valuable satellite events including free ‘Wi-Fi Wednesdays’ which saw the doors of his creative co-working and makers space open to the public across the month of July.
Smart My City
Whether you’re involved in a government of grassroots initiative, an exciting directory has been developed to connect you with other smart city leaders. Smart My City came onto our radar early last month following the one-man-led launch of the online community. Although the site is still in its infancy, we have already made some meaningful connections with individuals keen to collaborate in some pipeline projects.
Look how much fun we had playing pass the mic — we’re still as chuffed as ever to have been awarded ‘Best Smart City Solution’ for The Thing Things Network Newcastle and Lake Macquarie community. | Photo: The Lunaticks Society