Category: Smart(er) Cities

Smarter NYC Case Studies

Smarter NYC Case Studies

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How City Agencies Innovate

The “Smart(er) NYCitywide Research Group” was created by André Corrêa d’Almeida with scholars from 13 universities and research institutes, with the goal of developing case studies aiming at examining how innovation from within the New York City government is making urban systems smarter and shaping people’s lives. The focus is on how city agencies have been adapting to and adopting new data and technology innovations to make their management systems more inclusive and responsive to decision making and citizens, their success, failures and replicability. These case studies will be published by Columbia University Press in the spring of 2018. In addition to this single-city project with New York City (U.S.) the initiative also includes a cities-cluster project with Lisbon and Cascais (Portugal). This “Smart(er) City” initiative is also being expanded to the UK, China and Latin America.

General Objective and Research Questions

The School of International and Public Affairs’ (SIPA) Master of Public Administration in Development Practice (MPA – DP) Program of Columbia University (CU) is partnering with The City of New York in an effort, led by Professor André Corrêa d’Almeida, to map the ecology of innovation in NYC. More specifically, the case studies will be based on smart city initiatives identified across city agencies. The project’s unifying objectives are to:
  • Describe the process of how specific smart city innovations were initiated, developed and implemented within NYC agencies;
  • Reveal key roles, interactions, decisions, challenges and best practices that contributed to successful innovation and solutions;
  • Uncover behavioral aspects capable of hindering creativity and innovation across city agencies;
  • Identify institutional elements, incentives and contextual variables that fostered innovation;
  • Highlight organizational attributes that supported innovation;
  • Discuss how NYC’s programs compare to a sample of similar programs around the world;
  • Describe outcomes and discuss the assessment and impact of the initiatives;
  • Recommend next-generation enhancements to these programs; discuss how NYC’s innovation policies can facilitate growth of these programs; discuss the “way forward” for optimizing benefits for NYC;
  • Showcase NYC as an incubator and test-bed for innovative smart city initiatives and help reimagine bottom-up possibilities that emerge from within public administration.

NYC Case Studies

Strong and Just City
Business More Local
Free Wifi for NYC
Real Time Water Use
Ending Traffic Deaths
Gunshot Detection
Reliable Energy
Zero Waste in NYC
Improving Transportation
Data Analytics
Urban Air Monitoring
Detecting Outbreaks
Smarter Cities

Smarter Cities

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Our Goal

To help local governments, city administrations and municipalities:

  • Map their own administration innovation ecosystem.
  • Identify development opportunities in priority areas for administrations and citizens.
  • Develop innovation agendas and road-maps based on existing internal innovation drivers.
  • Build smarter public-private partnerships and new funding mechanisms based on incremental development and quick wins.
  • Make their programs and cities smarter places to live.

To help urban tech companies:

  • Design and implement co-development innovation strategies with local governments, city administrations and municipalities
  • Design and implement impact assessment systems.

How do we achieve our goal 

Phase 1: Innovation Mapping

We work with local governments, city administrations and municipalities to study and document how innovation from within public structures and agencies are making urban systems smarter and shaping people’s lives, how these structures have been adapting to and adopting new data and technology innovations to make their management systems more inclusive and responsive to decision making and citizens, their success, failures and replicability.

See example: NYC Innovation Cluster 

Phase 2: Innovation Roadmaps

We produce case studies and innovation roadmaps to help local governments, city administrations and municipalities reimagine new possibilities for their services and programs, for their public-private partnerships and for co-development with the private sector, academia, civil society and neighboring cities and municipalities.

See example: Open Data and Small Business Development

See example: Institutionalizing Analytic Excellence 

Phase 3: Smarter Programs

We apply our Becoming Smarter Framework (BSF) to help local governments, city administrations and municipalities, as well as their public structures and agencies, become smarter.

  • Leadership
  • Legislation
  • Organizational structure
  • Networks
  • Technology
  • Data
  • Results

See example: The Circular City Public-Private Partnership for New Lab

See example: Circular City Research Program

Where

Current initiatives include single-city program with New York City (U.S.), multiple-city program with Lisboa, Cascais, Fundacao and Mafra (Portugal) and city-cluster program in the Pearl River Delta (China) (in design phase).

manhattan2 portugal china