The Rapid Spread Of Smart Cities Exchanges Old Risks For New Ones

Smart cities are entering a new phase, as not only are city leaders readily installing digital solutions to improve efficiencies, such as cutting down the minutes spent on a daily commute, but residents are now able to use their smartphones as the keys to the city that unlock further capabilities by injecting additional data into the ‘smart’ ecosystem, according to a 2018 report from the McKinsey Global Institute. Smart cities are also spreading from the major metropolitan areas where they’ve typically originated, to smaller locales. “What we’ve seen is this funnel down from large metropolitan, high density, urban areas. The projects that they have in New York, Boston, Jakarta — really large global cities — have started to come down to some of the more medium-sized urban environments — Arlington, Texas, Kansas City — where you’re seeing deployment of certain technology that’s getting them used to the process needed to cooperate between the public and private entities,” said Thom Rickert, vice president and emerging risks specialist of Trident Public Risk Solutions.