What are Smarter Cities?

When thinking about the urban environment, more often than not problems come first to mind.  Less commonly thought about is the potential presented by cities, potential to rethink and reshape their environments responsibly.  Today urban leaders—mayors, businesses and community organizations—are in the environmental vanguard, making upgrades to transportation infrastructure, zoning, building codes, and waste management programs as well as improving access to open space, green jobs, affordable efficient housing and more. If they succeed in making their cities more efficient, responsible and sustainable, what will result will be smarter places for business and healthier places to live.

Smarter Cities, a project of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a non-profit 501(c)(3), is a multimedia web initiative whose aim is to be a news-you-can-use web portal for and about cities striving to make themselves "smarter" - more efficient, sustainable, equitable and livable. As a new media resource, Smarter Cities is a destination site for all who have a stake in their city's future—from students to policy makers and city planners, from business leaders to community groups and urban dwellers—to learn about best practices and initiatives, share ideas and innovative solutions, and post news, events and opportunities. We also hope Smarter Cities will be a catalyst, that cities all across the country will come to Smarter Cities knowing that it is where they will find solutions to the challenges they face, and make good use of the valuable tools we are working everyday to gather - the model policies and programs, best practices, incentives and innovations that leader cities are piloting - by rolling them out where they live.

Here's what you will find on the site:

Smarter Cities

A primary goal of the Smarter Cities project is to identify leader cities, those cities that for a specific sustainability factor are putting in place best practices, testing innovative new programs, passing model legislation, etc. To this end, starting in August 2010, we are rolling out a series of research projects, each to probe one of the following sustainability factors: Municipal Energy; Transportation; Water; Green Building; Smart Growth; Environmental Justice; Waste Prevention; Food Security; Air Quality; Green Space; Standard of Living. The results of our energy research can be found here.

We have both  external advisors from academe and government as well as an internal advisory group of NRDC experts to help us develop a research plan specific to each factor. It is important that we establish a clear and reasonable description of the factor by which we will compare cities' performance, and that we are sure it is researchable, meaning there is good data to collect. The advisors help us develop all of this, to make sure we use the most appropriate "sieve" for our evaluation. Data collection in each case will be as comprehensive as possible and involve surveys and interviews with municipal officials as well as a full review of existing data sources. The data is then analyzed in order to create a shortlist, which with further review will be reduced to the best or "Smarter Cities" for each of three population sizes:  large - >250,000, Medium – 100,000-249,999, and Small – under 100,000).

Detailed stories will be written about the Smarter Cities selected as leaders for a particular factor. Along with the stories will be photo essays to illustrate the programs and initiatives that marked them as leaders. More importantly a toolkit will be created with the information gathered in our research - a copy of a model ordinance, a detailed description of an innovative new program, a web site for citizens who want more information, want to learn about incentives, opportunities, resources, ways to get involved, and other valuable tools cities and their residents should find useful.

Cities to Watch

There is so much going on in cities across this country and around the world. With Cities to Watch we can report on it all, from the latest in permeable pavement and green walls to efforts to get fresh produce into urban food deserts or to engage underserved neighborhoods in decision-making processes to improve transit, air quality, access to parks, etc. Our research will turn up lots of interesting stories we'll want to share with readers, but Cities to Watch is also a place for citizen reporters to get involved. We welcome photo essays and videos as well as text articles, as long as they showcase a program or project with which your community is seeking to make itself smarter - use resources more efficiently, improve livability, etc. This is also where we'll partner with other media to bring you the latest news about cities to watch around the world.

Citiblog

Citiblog features daily posts from NRDC's expert staff and Smarter Cities team.

Citizen Reporter

These posts are yours, our street beat reporters, filled with news images and ideas from your city.

What's Smart Near You?

This is one of our favorite toolkits, though it's really more for individuals than for cities which is why we share it with our sister site at NRDC, Simple Steps. We hope you will help us to grow it by letting us know of searchable databases and other resources that allow all of us to locate local goods and services that make all of us and our communities smarter.

Maps, Grids, City Search

The maps, grids and city search tools are there to help you find things. They're at-a-glance indices to all the information on the site. Since we have so much, we've provided some easy tools on the maps and in the grid to help sort it all.  So you can find everything.