We began last week by talking about our visions of smart cities, and how the civic technology movement represents an early first step towards making smart cities a reality. We discussed how this movement is affecting government from within, by encouraging a more agile, responsive approach to citizen services.
Responsive government services are important for cities. Local governments often control the parts of cities that we most associate with building a smarter future. Roads, garbage collection, traffic management, public transit, water delivery, and other basic infrastructure—the meat and potatoes of anyone’s “smart city” dreams—all require government intervention to change and fix.
But governments that wish to adopt agile approaches to these problems face significant hurdles: