“The most important components for smart cities are engaging communities and forging partnerships,” this was the statement of US Federal officials, during Smart Cities Week, last week, who underlined a theory that has become increasingly popular in the smart city debate – a truly smart city is one that is shaped by its citizens rather than its authorities. In December last year we covered the shift of thinking on smart cities, moving from a top-down to a bottom-up approach for urban design and development. Previously, in the US, we saw the federal government attempting to create a smart city model that could be reproduced and reused in multiple cities. Now, it seems, the US government is seeing the benefits of engaging communities and allowing them to influence the way their city gets smarter. By engaging communities, authorities can better identify problems and priorities within a city, then use smart city technologies to help solve those […]