Smart city has become a loaded term – earlier Smart City projects were often expensive, didn’t fully deliver and embedded top-down models of centralised control in city operation.

However, the term is still widely used as shorthand to talk about the use of technology in cities.

In the time since the first projects emerged there have been developments in technology, but also changes to the wider social, political, environmental and economic context.

2020 lead to a re-evaluation of many accepted norms, making now a good time to consider how we respond and simultaneously think about what we want our long-term future to be.

Technology will play a key role in supporting this future, leading to the question of what is a smart city?