Most people enjoy a bit of science fiction, a little make-believe about what could be possible in an imagined future where scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes occur. It makes sense then that our hopes for the idea of SA smart cities exist.
A smart city suggests greater, better things that make our cities more efficient and provide a better quality of life for those who inhabit it.
With our aspirations pinned on developing smart cities within the next 10 to 20 years, it has been highlighted in our president’s Sona address for three years in a row, with Lanseria being envisioned as “the first new city to be built in a democratic South Africa”.
This interest on how smart cities can aid many of our social, economic, and sustainability issues – not to mention the vision of high-speed rail, glossy new buildings and fast technology – is encouraging. But the primary challenge is turning idealisation into actuality.
A smart city in the local context does not only refer to its technological advancements. It refers to being better at delivering basic services to our people, and making cities more inclusive. Both of those points in reality are far from being fully realised. Providing an ample amount of affordable energy is a case in point.
Secondly, even if a city is smart in design, such as Cornubia City in Durban, it may look impressive on paper, but it needs to work better for everyone. It also needs to be more inclusive, and not only focus on the inner city, or CBD as it used to be known, and suburbia. Townships and rural spaces also make up the bare bones of a smart city and need to be included in its early design and integration.
Then there is that issue of who’ll pay for this mass development across the country, turning once vacant greenlands into burgeoning metropolises (which in itself is an ecological challenge as there is an environmental contest to consider). There is no fiscus to speak of to enable this. Government certainly cannot pay for it on its own; as such the private sector needs to be brought on board.
Further, we need to balance out what will happen to our existing cities when these smart cities come online. Managing "crime & grime" has been a central theme for local governments for years. Consider the inner city of Johannesburg in 1994 when there was a huge capital flight of businesses to Sandton and several buildings were left unattended. It has taken decades to regenerate the inner city even though this is isolated to areas such as Braamfontein, Newtown and Maboneng.
This needs to be a learning curve; once we build a new smart city, we leave another part of the old city to decay, and it becomes a zero sum game. When building smart cities, there should be no detriment to what already exists.
Cape Town’s CBD, 20 years ago, did not look like it does now. There was a commitment between the public and private sectors to not let the city turn to crime and grime.
The concept of smart governance is central to enabling smart cities, and innovation combined with digital technologies to improve government service delivery and societal inclusion is key.
Managing the dynamics of smart cities also requires new models of governance, as well as cooperation among citizens, private organisations and non-governmental organisations.
If we are to fully realise our future smart city aspirations, we first need to address service delivery and inequality. We cannot build an Elysium when our existing cities are falling apart around us.
We first need to fix the rot, then re-focus our vision, employing the best the fourth industrial revolution has to offer, while shifting our thinking towards a human-centric approach, to unlock opportunities for all South Africans, not only those who can afford it.
• Mbanga is CEO of The South African Cities Network
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