The Many Ways of Building a Smart City
As cities jump on the bandwagon to become a “smart city”, how this is interpreted and achieved differs.
Last updated 1 March 2025
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Exploring the concept of smart city, Singapore uses drones to create “fireworks” during its National Day Parade in 2017. Source: Xavier Lur
Source: SITEC
As cities jump on the bandwagon to become a “smart city”, how this is interpreted and achieved differs. At this year’s Selangor Smart City & Future Commerce Convention, panellists from around the world explored options of smart cities concepts worldwide for ASEAN cities, and assessed the progress these cities have made.
What stood out during the convention was how cities were developing their own smart city concepts and approaches to become “smart”. These are often adapted to cities’ larger developmental agenda. For example, the state of Selangor launched its “Smart State” initiative in 2015 to bring about a digitally connected lifestyle and stimulate new sectors of the economy, such as Industrial 4.0, automation, e-commerce and the Internet of Things.
Similarly, Singapore’s journey of becoming a Smart Nation has long been embedded in the country’s development journey. During a panel discussion on “Contemporary development strategies for people-centric smart cities”, Zhou Yimin, Senior Assistant Director of Research of Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC), explained that although the concept of Smart City is relatively new, Singapore has carried out the guiding principles of taking an integrated approach to planning and implementation for decades. This has created a strong foundation of physical developments and ICT infrastructure, enabling the island state’s Smart Nation initiative to take flight.
Also on this panel to share their city’s experience in becoming “smart” while putting people’s interest at the heart were:
1. Charles Lin, Deputy Mayor of Taipei City
2. Jonathan Reichental, CIO of Palo Alto
3. Maria Sisternas, CEO of Media Urban
4. Frans-Anton Vermas, Senior Strategy Adviser of the Low Carbon & Connected Urban
Planning Unit in Amsterdam
5. John Davies, Global Strategy and Technology Advisor from the UK Trade and
Investment (UKTI) Department (moderator)
Frans-Anton shared how social inclusivity has gradually become the focus of smart city initiatives in Amsterdam. Recently, idle postmen have been deployed to conduct surveillance of road potholes and to read electricity and water meters. These postmen could potentially help the elderly, should they encounter difficulty in their lives too.
Audiences at the panel were keen to learn how the technology-enabled sharing economy such as Airbnb have influenced the younger generation on ideas of home ownership. In Singapore, high home ownership rates meant residents were concerned over issues such as potential nuisance. Thus, even while embracing innovations, the government has enacted new regulations to address reasonable public concerns. In Taipei, the sharing economy has provided an affordable alternative for young residents to stay closer to the city centre even as the cost of housing continues to rise. In this case the government is working to provide adequate quality public housing, while playing the role of an accelerator by managing and facilitating the growth of sharing economy with the smart city initiative.
The experiences of the various panellists showed how different cities implement the concept of being smart according to their own contexts. It could either be a top-down approach by the government, or groundup implementation with the government as a stimulant. In a 2016 CLC comparative study of smart city initiatives in Singapore and New York City, researchers found both cities approached the idea of “Smart Cities” very differently. While Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative represents a deliberate and all-inclusive national plan to integrate digital technology in all aspects of life, New York City adopts an incremental, project-based approach to harness the value of data, information and technology to address specific problem statements. Regardless of the approach, both cities have many achievements in leveraging digital technologies to enhance liveability in their city.
The rugged landscape of smart city development demonstrates that there is no one-size-fit-all solution. As more ASEAN cities embark on the journey to become “smart”, city leaders and urban practitioners will have to develop acute awareness of the problems to be addressed in their cities, define goals to achieve, and formulate unique smart approaches according to situational needs of cities. Platforms for discourses and idea exchange like this convention are an encouraging start in the ASEAN region, bringing together a variety of experiences to enable a bigger picture understanding, and to initiate quality discussions among regional city leaders.
About the Writer
Xu Yuting
Yuting is a Researcher at the Centre for Liveable Cities, in the areas of data analytics, modelling, smart cities and complexity science. She graduated with a Bachelor degree in Environmental Studies (Geography), with a minor in Geographical Information System.