* This is my column in BusinessWorld on June 04, 2019.
Metro Manila is composed of 17 cities and has a population of 13.1 million in 2016, the 18th largest city in the world. This 13 million would swell to around 15 million at daytime when people from neighboring provinces come to the big city to study, work, do business and so on. This is big, but not so big compared to other cities around the world like Tokyo, Delhi and Shanghai. Other Asian cities will soon have 10+ million people like Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh (see table).
Metro Manila is composed of 17 cities and has a population of 13.1 million in 2016, the 18th largest city in the world. This 13 million would swell to around 15 million at daytime when people from neighboring provinces come to the big city to study, work, do business and so on. This is big, but not so big compared to other cities around the world like Tokyo, Delhi and Shanghai. Other Asian cities will soon have 10+ million people like Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh (see table).
Developing “smart cities” for those huge and
densely-populated metropolis is among the important challenges for these micro
areas and local governments.
At the recent Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity 2019
last May 29-31, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) sponsored a
panel, “Smart Cities and Startups — Opportunities for Business Innovation” with
three speakers.
The head of FNF Korea office in Seoul, Christian Taaks,
said in his opening remarks that “Smart Cities offer many new opportunities and
requires adaptation from individuals. Smart cities need smart citizens and
technology is used to empower citizens.”
Moderator-speaker Waltraut Ritter, Founder of the
Knowledge Dialogues in Hong Kong, said that Smart cities are about citizens and
technology as a platform to empower citizen to become “citypreneurs.” Citizens
and local governments interact, unlike before where the mayor seems to “know
everything” and has a control of everything in a city. Seoul is a good example
with a citizen dashboard project to get feedback from citizens what went wrong
in the city.
Marc Bovenschulte, Director of Institute for Innovation
and Technology in Germany, said that smart cities are about citizens, an
inclusive concept. In theory, ‘Smart Cities’ is an umbrella term for holistic
development concepts aiming cities to be more efficient, greener and more
socially inclusive. In reality, smart cities have become a playground for big
companies to implement new technologies serving traffic control, energy efficiency
and camera surveillance security.
Marc added that local governments should create
publicly-owned space for business creation and development. He cited the case
of Berlin — after reunification, East and West Berlin were both underdeveloped.
The East offered affordable stylish culture that attracted young international
talents in the arts, culture and lately digital bohemian. Part of this wave
created startups. The city government of Berlin initially had no plan to
attract and promote startups, then it offered cheap spaces which allowed the
growth of a creative mix of arts, culture, entrepreneurs and international
exchange.
Hwang Jie-Eun, Chair of Department of Architecture,
University of Seoul, said that smart cities and startups provide opportunity for
business innovation by using non-optimized urban space for SME technology and
products innovation. In particular, the Sewoon Campus project, a 1.2 km
megastructure in the heart of Seoul designed in 1967 and now consists of seven
shopping centres and urban manufacturing. Traditional SME factories are kept,
local knowledge and skills are preserved and this serves as connecting points
to enable ecosystem for startups. It is a bottom-up approach.
She added that to manage big data, teams developed
several levels of data inquiries. While many cities have policies in place, in
practice data is treated as assets, data owners tend to monetize.
When SME manufacturing can be done in the city, when
citizens and the local governments regularly communicate to solve problems,
when public space is optimized for business innovation and start ups, then
mobility of people and goods are made shorter and faster.
City governments in Metro Manila and nearby provinces can
devise ways to optimize market and private enterprise innovation, not optimize
regulations, restrictions and taxation. The former can empower citizens to a
prosperous future, the latter can do the reverse.
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See also:
BWorld 332, The global taxpayers conference, June 02, 2019
BWorld 333, The Public Service Act and provincial tourism, June 03, 2019
BWorld 334, US-China relations at Jeju Forum, June 04, 2019
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