Getting ahead of technology - Smart thinking

NRU
Nov. 19, 2014
By Edward LaRusic

Intelligent Community Forum co-founder Robert Bell says municipalities have two choices: They can react to information and communications technology that is changing the economies of municipalities across the globe, or they get in front and lead that change.

“Intelligent communities are about seeing how particular locations can get the benefits of the global broadband economy as opposed to experiencing its negative impacts which are of course, job dislocation, off shore and outsourcing, all things that are disruptions hitting us because of this amazing technology. So it’s really about cities seizing their destiny and saying ‘we want to be on the leading side of that equation.’”

Bell, who delivered the keynote address at the 24th annual University of Waterloo Planning Alumni of Toronto dinner in Toronto November 13, said that technology has always driven change, but many cities have either failed to install broadband internet infrastructure, or failed to take advantage of it.

“In a modern economy, 80 per cent of all economic growth comes from the introduction of new technology,” said Bell, in a pre-dinner interview. “But they also need to have people who can use that infrastructure.”

One of the clearest impacts of information and communications technology, said Bell, is how it has fundamentally changed how offices operate. Bell noted that for years, the common equation for office space was the requirement for 200sq.ft . per employee. In 2012, commercial real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle predicted that by 2014 50sq. ft . per employee would be sufficient. The space that was so valuable five years ago, said Bell, is no longer needed.

“Why did this possibly happen? Well, because employees aren’t spending their time in the office ...They are working with customers and suppliers; they are working from home, using mobile tools of the information age-the laptop, the tablet the mobile phone-to cut the physical tether to the office. They stay connected, they stay accessible, they stay accountable to the companies they work with through broadband.”

So how can cities seek to take advantage of broadband infrastructure? For starters, Bell said there is a wealth of information out there waiting to be collected, such as traffic flows, water main leakages, and even how much salt municipalities put on their roads in winter.

“All these things, if you measure them, you’ll be able to manage them. Up until now we’ve mostly just been estimating. One of the most remarkable things I ever learned was for most of the history of electric generation municipalities have never been able to measure how much they’re producing and how much they actually need... They really don’t know what’s going on inside their network.”

Aside from putting in broadband infrastructure-which Bell compares to roads and highways-municipalities need to ensure that their least capable citizens aren’t left behind, which Bell calls “digital inclusion.”

“The more successful we are at creating a high tech economy, the more people we’re going to leave out. Intelligent communities work really hard to bring more people into this economy, and they do it for moral reasons. But they also do it for self-interest. We spend a lot of money on dealing with the ills of those who are left out.”