Smart Cities
Green Vision
Prepared for Anne Messner, Edward LeCLear, and Meagan Tuttle
Megan Bergamaschi: mfb5149@gmail.com
Brett Channell: brett.channell@gmail.com
Ryan Busony: ryan.busony@gmail.com
Nathan Weber: ngw9780@gmail.com
SMART CITIES
1
Green Vision
Introduction
What is a smart city?
A smart city is a city that provides high
quality services to its citizens, enabling a
superior quality of life. At Green Vision,
we envision a smart city as a world
leader in technology, both utilizing
innovative and integrated technologies
as well as producing new technologies as
a result of its highly educated and
diverse population.
A smart city should attract smart citizens
and high quality businesses with its
quality infrastructure, stable economy,
and great quality of life. A smart city
must incentivize business growth
through effective tax codes and provide
avenues for government and business to
share information seamlessly.
Our vision of an ideal city is one that
uses resources efficiently to grow its
economy and offer opportunities to its
citizens. By encouraging cooperation
between business and government, our
smart city uses the most advanced
technologies and educational practices
available to grow a highly educated
workforce within its own boundaries.
This highly educated population leads to
a happier, healthier, and safer
population.
Overview of advantages of smart cities
There are a number of advantages of
moving towards becoming a smart city.
The City Science Initiative, an initiative
led by The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) is developing
strategies that will help cities to reduce
CO2 emissions, reduce traffic
congestion, improve livability, and
improve citizen creativity (“About City
Science”).
By pursuing smart city initiatives, a city
can become more effective at law
enforcement and emergency
management through data analytics of
crime and GPS integration into
emergency vehicles. A city can also
become “greener” by encouraging the
construction of energy efficient housing,
offices, and commercial and industrial
complexes. A city can also reduce
energy use by implementing a smarter
and more usable public transportation
system. Another advantage could be a
decrease of waste through effective
waste management programs, and more
effective wastewater recycling.
All of these are great opportunities for
cities to pursue in their quest to become
a smarter, greener, and ultimately more
economically diverse city.
Methods to achieve smart city goals
In moving towards becoming a smart
city, a city must take steps to achieve
certain goals that it lays out for itself.
These goals should be measurable and
able to be implemented in an efficient
manner. Goals must be measurable in
order to be managed; without the ability
to analyze metrics related to project
implementation, city planners and
decision makers will struggle with
allocating and managing resources
dedicated to the initiatives.
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Some rules for developing goals are:
1. Do more with less
2. Bridge silos in information and
operations
3. Use civic engagement to drive better
results
4. Invest in infrastructure for better
management
(“IBM Smarter Cities Challenge”).
These rules were developed by IBM as
part of their Smarter Cities Challenge.
These four areas were identified as the
largest struggles for cities when
implementing smart cities solutions. By
using these four rules as a guide, a city
will be able to avoid many of the pitfalls
of smart city initiatives. Paying close
attention to industry recognized best
practices and lessons learned from
previous implementations is a great way
for a city to reduce costs and enhance the
long-term financial benefits of smart city
initiatives.



Planning and Management
o Government and agency
administration
o Smarter buildings and urban
planning
o Environmental
o Public safety
Human
o Public safety
o Social programs
o Healthcare
o Education
Infrastructure
o Transportation
o Energy and Water
o Environmental
(“What Smarter Means”)
As you can see, there is some overlap
between different areas whereby an
environmental initiative will improve the
city both from an infrastructure
standpoint as well as planning and
management.
IBM has also outlined three general
areas where cities can make
improvements to their current state.
Those areas are planning and
management, human, and infrastructure.
Within each area of emphasis, there are
subcategories outlined, they are as
follows:
Figure 1
IBM outlines the
three over arching
categories of a
smart city as
planning and
management,
human, and
infrastructure.
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Ultimately, the cooperation of business
and government is the most
Figure 2
important factor in realizing Diagram from Urenio
(Urban and Regional
gains from smart city
Innovation Research.
initiatives. To achieve this
cooperative relationship, a
city must ensure that their
laws, codes, regulations,
etc. fall in line with the
following characteristics:
 Political representation
 Innovation
 Coherent bureaucracies
 Anti-corruption
 Conflict management
 Service delivery
The aforementioned characteristics will
lead to effective governance that is
trusted by its citizens and resident
businesses and will aid tremendously in
realizing long-term successes from smart
city initiatives.
interpretations, ideas, and models.
Around the world, cities with the smart
label have extremely diversified
demographics.
How does diversity make a city
smarter?
Diversity brings different perspectives,
inspiring innovative designs. The
inspirational innovative ideas spark
better work ethic and therefore, a
better output. A sense of mutual
respect is gained from diversity. The
sense of interpersonal incompatibility
must first be overcome. Groups work
better when there are more similarities
between its members – not necessarily in
terms of their ideas to bring to the group
or the roles and skills that they have, but
in terms of preferences of whom to
interact and coexist with. If coexisting
with differences in cultures and
generations becomes the norm, groups
can overcome the interpersonal
incompatibility and therefore absorb all
the perks that a diverse work
environment has to offer.
Figure 3
Diversity at the
top ten tech
companies from
Venture Beat.
Demographics
Importance of diversity
Diversity is vital for innovation, as it
leads to diverse perspectives,
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and cultural backgrounds to boost global
interaction.
World smart cities vs. United States
smart cities
Diverse demographics and diverse
industries enhance business reputation.
Companies strive for a reputation of
being well rounded. Effectively
maintaining a diverse work force
enhances reputation and leads to
increased profits and opportunities for
workers. From an external view,
customers like to do business with
companies who use socially acceptable
practices, whether they know about the
reputation of diversity or they can
personally connect with employees of
similar demographics.
Employees also learn from different
cultures and backgrounds and can
increase their cultural education and
global perspective. For example with
generational differences, Generation X
employees can learn how to efficiently
use interfaces in technology from
Generation Y or the “Millennials.”
“Of 321 large global enterprises
surveyed in a Forbes study in 2011, 85
percent agreed or strongly agreed that
diversity is crucial to fostering
innovation in the workplace” (Kerby).
Entrepreneurialism is comprised with
much diversity. These days, people of
color own 22 percent of U.S. businesses.
Women own 29 percent of businesses.
Latina-owned businesses are the fastestgrowing segment of the women-owned
business market. In terms of sexual
orientation, about 5 percent of
businesses are owned by gay or
transgender individuals (Kerby).
Tourism in cities leads to more
innovative ideas
Tourism is another diversity-related
factor that adds value to a city. Travel
and tourism is a major contributor to the
U.S. economy, and varies from city to
city. Travel and tourism make up for
more than 27 percent of all U.S. services
exports and nearly 8 percent overall.
Tourism directly impacts the economy
of a city, impacting hotels, restaurants,
attractions, and transportation. We can
also consider how an increased
ethnically diverse population adds more
diverse restaurants and stores, which is
another factor to increase tourism, which
creates a recursion effect.
As the world population continues to
increase and there is international
integration, diverse countries will
become more economically competitive.
Specifically, in the United States,
businesses are leveraging the varied race
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and can be considered a smart city. Paris
is ranked one of the smartest cities in
Europe, in large part because of its bikesharing network, leading to a 5 percent
reduction in vehicle congestion. Paris’
ecosystem was ranked 11th best in the
world (Cohen).
Figure 4
The Executive Office of the President May
2014 statistics of United States visitors.
“The $1.5 trillion industry supports
nearly 8 million American jobs. Of
these, 1.3 million are supported by
international visitors” (“Increasing
Tourism to Spur Economic Growth”).
Figure 5
The U.S. is the
second highest
tourist destination
in the world.
France is the most popular tourist
destination in the world, resulting in a
massive profit for their economy. With
many business tourism and recreational
assets such as the Eifel Tower and
famous wineries, Paris has a nice income
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Studies have shown that by 2050, there
will be no racial majority in the United
States, and by then, about 20 percent of
Americans will identify themselves as
having two or more races. Foreign cities
such as Tokyo should embrace more
women and foreigners into their work
environment. Yet, Matsushita Electric
and Nissan have started hiring close to
half of their nonFigure 6
engineering staff to be
Paris, France.
Image from
women. While we may not
Co.Exist’s list of
be able to directly rely on
top 10 smartest
cities around the globe to
cities in Europe.
have diversity in their
workplaces now, we can
still rely on the future
(Tanikawa).
Budget
Return on investment
Cities are costly systems to maintain. With every city, the local government has expenses
needed to keep things running on a day-to-day basis. The idea of the smart city is to assist
in reducing these costs and streamlining systems in order to lower expenses. Many
examples of these cost-cutting solutions are already present around the world, solving
many problems in a cost-effective way. For example, one smart city initiative from
Schneider Electric advertises their projects could save up 30% in energy costs, 15%
reduction of water losses, and 20% of travel time (“Smart Cities”). These savings have
the potential to be enormous, as cities contribute to 75% of the world's energy
consumption and 80% of the world's carbon emissions.
Infrastructure is one of the main costs in any city, both in construction and maintenance.
Constructing new buildings and renovating old ones are vast undertakings both in
manpower and economic costs. Buildings are also huge consumers of a city's resources,
accounting for 70% of all energy use and 38% of its carbon emissions (Bartlett). By
incorporating smart city ideas, again these costs could potentially be mitigated. With
these savings, the city's resources could be allocated better to more useful endeavors.
Another major source of revenue loss is power outages. Throughout the United States,
the economic loss due to power outages amounts to over $20 billion per year. In Europe,
these outages can cross international borders (“Energy: Background behind necessity of
smart grids”). Building better and smarter power grids can reduce these costs immensely
as well as keep commercial and government business going even during disasters. For
example, in the city of Chattanooga, after upgrading their power grid to a smart grid, its
self-healing capabilities are capable of reducing power outages by 40%. The smart grid
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also was able to restore power to 50% of the homes in two-seconds, where as restoring
those homes before the implementation for this smart grid would have taken upwards of
17 hours. In terms of real dollars, during one storm alone the grid was able to save the
city $1.4 million in restoration costs (“Sustainable Cities”).
In larger cities, public transportation is the primary means of travel for the city's citizens.
Public transportation helps reduce traffic congestion, decreases transportation time, as
well as decreases carbon emissions. By upgrading their public transportation system to a
smart system, in the long term it can reduce costs. Traffic congestion is a major drain of
economic progress. The cost of traffic congestion, for example, costs the European Union
1% of its GDP, or roughly 100 billion Euros per year (“Smarter Transportation”). It is
also a major source of carbon emissions, with US road traffic wasting both 2.8 billion
gallons of fuel and 4.2 billion hours, the total cost of which is around $87.2 billion a year
(“Smarter Transportation”). An increase in the use of public transportation can help
reduce those costs, such as in one European city where an improvement in public
transportation reduced traffic by 18% and increased the use of public transportation
increased its passengers by 80,000 per day (“Smarter Transportation”).
London has one of the largest and most
Water is one of the most important and
advanced public transportation systems
plentiful resources in the world. Due to
in the world, and by investing £15
the growing urbanization around the
billion in new and improved rail lines,
world, water systems in cities are
the wider economic impact is estimated
becoming strained and overused.
at £40 billion (“Sustainable Cities”).
Approximately 1.1 billion people around
Their new trains are capable of carrying
the world lack access to safe drinking
1,500 passengers per train, with 24 trains
water, while 2.6 billion do not have
coming in to a station every hour,
access to sanitation facilities like sewer
keeping cars and people off the roads
systems (“Water”). By utilizing smart
and transporting them in an efficient
water systems, clean water can be
way. In the city of Medellin, a cable car
collected for many different sources and
system has reduced carbon emissions by
recycled in new, safe ways to reuse
20,000 tons of CO2 per year, as well as
water in places where water is scarce.
reducing violent crime by 80%
The city-state of Singapore, whose land
(“Sustainable Cities”). The funds for
mass consists of only 277 square miles
these projects can be helped by smart
and has a population of nearly 5.5
investments on the city's part. In the city
million people. In order to help alleviate
of Delhi, their new improvement to their
the need to import water for all the city's
metro system (which is larger than New
water needs from the neighboring
York City's metro system by nearly
country of Malaysia, roughly 70% of
30km) has been partially funded by
Singapore's land mass is used for
commercial property development
collecting rain water with. In the future,
around new stations being built
90% of its land mass will be used for
(“Sustainable Cities”).
this purpose (“Sustainable Cities”).
Advanced systems of desalination (the
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process of turning sea water in to
drinkable water) and water recycling
have reduced Singapore's water loss to
5%, the lowest in the world
(“Sustainable Cities”).
experiencing a massive period of
urbanization, strategies for creating
smarter cities are a global imperative.
Every city has its unique needs; a perfect
city is nonexistent. Although there will
never be a perfect city, smart city
projects are designed to improve cities’
problem areas. Current city
shortcomings include but are not limited
to, congestion, pollution, inefficient
infrastructure, lack of technology, and
high crimes rates. Smart city initiatives
can be employed to improve all of these
problems the world’s cities are facing.
As more and more people move to urban
areas, cities are also faced with a
competition to differentiate. There is
competition to attract new residents,
businesses, and tourism, to become a
leading city with a vibrant economy.
Innovative technologies can help turn
these challenges into opportunities.
Current Shortcomings
Workable Solutions
City Issues to Address
According to the United Nations
Population Fund, in 2008, more than half
the world’s population was living in
towns and cities for the first time in
history, and the numbers are expected to
grow (“Linking Population, Poverty, and
Development”). As the world is
Criticism of Smart Cities
As with any new urban movement,
criticism exists. One main criticism that
people have against smart city initiatives
is that there is a lack of definitional
precision. Dr. Boyd Cohen, an urban and
climate strategist, writes on the Co. Exist
website, “I believe that the smart-cities
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movement is being held back by a lack
of clarity and consensus around what a
smart city is and what the components of
a smart city actually are” (“What exactly
is a smart city”). Some people hold a
very narrow view while others have a
very broad view of smart cities. Along
the same lines of definitional precision,
there is the criticism of exaggerated
progress and unreliable statements of
improvement for cities that implement
these projects. In the article, Will the
real smart city please stand up, author
Robert Holland writes about how cities
are premature to hopping on the “smartlabel bandwagon”(Hollands). By
analyzing how other smart city
initiatives have been criticized for this, a
lot can be learned. When developing
future projects, cities need to have
clearly defined goals, plans, and unbiased analyses of results.
Another main criticism is that the
concept of a smart city leads to
underestimation of the potential negative
effects of the use of new technologies.
Richard Sennett, Professor at the London
School of Economics and New York
University, published an
article for The Guardian titled Figure 8
Masdar city plan
No one likes a city that’s too
from Arch Daily
article “Inside
smart. Sennett highlights two
Masdar City.”
prime examples of smart city
initiatives that have negative
outcomes due to the use of
technology; Masdar in the
United Arab Emirates and
Songdo in South Korea.
Sennett explains that Masdar
is a half-built city in the desert that
completely lays out the activities of the
city using technology monitoring and
regulating functions from a central
command center. Consumers have
choices laid out for them by prior
calculations of where to shop, or to get a
doctor, or to how to travel in
Figure 7
Songdo, Korea
the most efficient way
implements smart
possible. He writes, “There’s
housing faces
no stimulation through trial
criticism for being too
smart.
and error; people learn their
city passively.” Masdar is
facing harsh criticism for
their overbearing use of
technology. In Songdo, the
smart city project is revolved
around architecture. The city is building
housing blocks rising out of the South
Korean western mountains. The
buildings are massive, clean, and
efficient, but now heat, security, parking,
and deliveries are all controlled by one
Songdo center. This brings concerns of
one central command having too much
power. The housing is also extremely
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uniform, consisting of almost no
individuality. Many lessons can be
learned by looking at these past smart
city failures. Moving forward, projects
should aim to be exceptionally efficient
but not to the point where citizens feel
like their real life “normalcy” has been
shifted.
Successful Smart City Projects
While learning from criticism of other
smart city projects is helpful, we can
also look at successful smart city
projects for guidance. Co.Exist ranks
Vienna, Toronto, and Paris as the top
three smartest cities on the planet, in that
order. They’re all ranked in the top three
for different reasons and cities can look
to these for inspiration of similar
projects. Co.Exist states, “Vienna is
establishing bold smart-city targets and
tracking their progress to reach them,
with programs like the Smart Energy
Vision 2050, Roadmap 2020, and Action
Plan 2012-2015” (Cohen). By clearly
outlining targets and having programs
track their progress; Vienna reduces the
ambiguity of a smart city with the
definition and reduces skepticism of
project results. Vienna was also ranked
top ten in every category Co.Exist
evaluates, showing they are well
rounded and not focusing on just one
sector. Additionally, Vienna
incorporates stakeholder consultation
into building their changes, which
encourages more assessments and
viewpoints. More viewpoints help to
avoid making mistakes involving
overbearing use of technology.
Toronto was ranked the
Figure 9
second smartest city on the
Growth in
planet and the first smartest
knowledgecity in North America.
intensive services is
driving urban
Multinational technology and
income.
consulting corporation, IBM,
opened a Business Analytics
Solution Center in Toronto.
The city is also creating a
“Smart Commute Toronto” initiative to
convert to a low-carbon economy. An
example of their initiative is Toronto
recently began using natural gas to
power their garbage trucks.
Paris was ranked the third smartest city
on the planet, mostly due to their
sustainability efforts. Paris has a highly
successful bike sharing program and a
recently launched electric vehicle
sharing service. Vienna, Toronto, and
Paris do not face as much criticism as
other smart city initiatives because they
are held accountable by other partnering
organizations and stakeholders. They
also set clear targets, goals, and reliable
results.
Proposals for future smart cities
Moving forward, there are key
components that future smart city
initiatives should focus on. With stiff
competition between cities, attracting
residents, businesses, and tourists, is
among these key components. In order
to do this, planners need to strive for a
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knowledge-based economy with higher
education, training, and skills of the
workforce. IBM’s Institute for Business
Value wrote a report titled “Smarter
cities for smarter growth.” It includes the
graph below showing the increasing
trend of knowledge-intensive growth.
Other factors attracting people to cities
are high quality of life and good living
conditions. This entails all different core
aspects of cities including amount of
congestion, emergency response
efficiency, crime rates, education
delivery, government services,
employment opportunities, and quality
of healthcare.
As the first step in accomplishing a
smart city initiative, the city should
decide their unique needs based on their
problem areas. Once those are
determined then the city can start
building their ideal future and how they
will differentiate themselves from other
cities. The next step is adopting policies
that create better infrastructure and
attract talent. These policies could
include local and urban business
development projects or infrastructure
improvement plans. The final key
component is actually implementing
effective, efficient, and practical
solutions that will improve the problems.
Information technology and data
analytics should be leveraged to help
cities excel as innovative leaders.
Conclusion
Why become a smart city?
The advantages of pursuing smart city initiatives are numerous and well worth the
investment. Smart city initiatives, when implemented effectively and integrated with
existing services and infrastructure while also allowing for expansion through future
initiatives, lead to enormous benefits to the city as a whole, but more importantly to the
business and citizens that inhabit a city. As our population becomes more technology
savvy, as they seek more environmentally friendly services, and as they look to gain
access to information (regardless of its nature) in real-time, cities must be prepared to
respond and provide the necessary infrastructure and services desired by future
generations.
Consumers are moving more and more towards mobile technologies and a city that does
not offer the most state-of-the-art services, available in real-time on mobile devices, will
fall behind in our increasingly global economy. By taking steps now to ensure your city
will be an economically viable and desirable locale in the future, you will be executing
your duties and responsibilities inherent in your government position to the best of your
ability. By beginning to plan and implement smart city initiatives now, you will be setting
up future citizens for success by allowing them to expand on the technologically
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integrated, environmentally friendly, economically diverse, and financially responsible
decisions related to smart city initiatives.
Why choose Green Vision?
At Green Vision, we hope to be your partner in planning, managing, and successfully
implementing a range of smart city initiatives. Green Vision employs experts in
technology integration, user design, project management, and security analysis to help
you develop cutting edge ideas using innovative technologies. We also ensure that as city
officials, you are using industry observed best practices so you can be good stewards of
public funds and avoid costly project pitfalls.
We invite you to discuss your current city initiatives and allow us to brainstorm, with
you, ideas for how to turn your current city into “The City of the Future.” At Green
Vision, we strive to help all of our partners achieve their goals and effectively implement
their smart city initiatives. To achieve this goal, we use industry best practices, respected,
peer-reviewed research, and lessons learned from a number of disciplines in order to
effectively plan, manage, and implement smart city solutions.
In closing, Green Vision believes that a smart city is a city that provides high quality
services to its citizens, enabling a superior quality of life. We envision a smart city as a
world leader in technology, both utilizing innovative and integrated technologies as well
as producing new technologies as a result of its highly educated and diverse population.
We hope that you will allow us to provide you with our expertise so that your city can
transition into a smart city.
Works Cited
"About City Science." MIT Cities. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2014.
<http://cities.media.mit.edu/about/cities>.
Bartlett, Dave. "5 Ways The Smart City Will Change How We Live In
2012."Co.Exist. N.p., 30 Dec. 2011. Web. 21 Sept. 2014.
<http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679062/5-ways-the-smart-city-will-change-howwe-live-in-2012>.
Cohen, Boyd. "The 10 Smartest Cities In Europe." Co.Exist. N.p., 13 Jan. 2014. Web. 24
Sept. 2014.
<http://www.fastcoexist.com/3024721/the-10-smartest-cities-in-europe>.
Cohen, Boyd. "The Top 10 Smart Cities On The Planet." Co.Exist. N.p.,
11 Jan. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2014. <http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679127/the-top10-smart-cities-on-the-planet>.
Energy (Background Behind Necessity of Smart Grids) : Smart Cities :
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Hitachi."Hitachi. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2014.
<http://hitachi.com/products/smartcity/smart-infrastructure/energy/index.html>.
Hollands, Robert. "Will the real smart city please stand up?." Taylor &
Francis. N.p., 26 Nov. 2008. Web. 24 Sept. 2014.
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10>.
"IBM Smarter Cities Challenge: About the Challenge." IBM Smarter
Cities Challenge: About the Challenge. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
<http://smartercitieschallenge.org/>.
"Increasing Tourism to Spur Economic Growth." CBP. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.
<http://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Travel%2Band%2BTourism%
2BProgress%2BReport.pdf>
Kerby, Sophia, and Crosby Burns. "The Top 10 Economic Facts of Diversity in the
Workplace." American Progress. N.p., 12 July 2012. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
<http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2012/07/12/11900/the-top10-economic-facts-of-diversity-in-the-workplace/>.
"Linking Population, Poverty, and Development ." Urbanization: A
Majority in Cities: Population & Development : UNFPA. United Nations
Population Fund, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
< http://www.unfpa.org/pds/urbanization.htm>.
"Smart Cities." Schneider Electric. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
<http://www2.schneiderelectric.com/sites/corporate/en/solutions/sustainable_solutions/smart-cities.page>.
"Smarter Transportation." A Smarter Planet. IBM, n.d. Web. 24 Sept.
2014.
<http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/transportation_systems/overview/inde
x.html>
"Sustainable Cities." The Importance of Urban infrastructure. Siemens,
n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014. <http://w3.siemens.com/topics/global/en/sustainablecities/pages/home.aspx#w2gHTM-900x975-/topics/global/en/sustainablecities/Documents/lightwindow-slider/index.html>.
Tanikawa, Miki. "Japanese Companies Embrace Diversity." The New York Times. N.p., 1
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<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/01/business/worldbusiness/01ihtwbjapan.1.5956210.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&>.
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"Water (Global State of Water) : Smart Cities : Hitachi." Smart Cities.
Hitachi, n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2014. <http://hitachi.com/products/smartcity/smartinfrastructure/water/index.html>.
"What Exactly Is A Smart City?." Co.Exist. Fast Company, n.d. Web.
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<http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/in/en>.
Appendices
Memorandum
To: Anne Messner and Dr. Sandeep Purao
From: Green Vision
Date: 14 September 2014
Subject: Ms. Messner State College Borough Presentation 9/4/14
Borough Overview
On Thursday, September 4, Anne Messner came to speak about the State College
Borough. She began her presentation by talking about the geographic boundaries for the
borough and also gave the class some demographic statistics. Anne emphasized the fact
that the State College Borough is a relatively small area (4.5 square miles) in comparison
to the overall area that people refer to as “State College.” The borough is surrounded by a
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number of townships that are considered to be State College, but are not part of the
borough.
Anne noted that the borough’s population is approximately 42,000, with only 12,000
being non-students. Since a large majority of borough residents are actually students,
resulting in a lower income base and allowing the borough access to state and federal
funds for projects such as road and infrastructure improvement. One of the downsides of
the transient, student population is that borough rents (and in the surrounding townships)
are much higher than areas of comparable size in Pennsylvania. Anne stated that the
borough of State College has the third most expensive rental market in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This makes living in the borough cost prohibitive for
much of the working population. Anne also outlined some of the services that the
Borough provides for residents in the Centre Region, such as housing the Centre Tax
Agency. Unlike some of the surrounding townships, the Borough performs its own trash
collection instead of outsourcing that service to a private company.
Issues
Some of the issues currently facing the borough are centered on lack of funds (budget
concerns) and low citizen involvement. With the budget constraints for capital
improvements, the borough has not been able to invest enough money in technology,
both in the form of hardware/software upgrades for everyday functions, as well as in
integrating new and innovative technologies into currently planned and funded capital
projects.
Suggested Projects
In response to the issues that Anne stated, she made suggestions for the class of potential
ideas to pursue. One of her ideas was online borough meetings to boost the participation
and involvement of the community. A group could design a plan for conducting remote
meetings on sites such as Skype, Blackboard Learn, etc. Remote meetings would allow
citizens that cannot travel to a centralized location to participate in the borough
discussions. This would reduce foot traffic and potentially increase citizen involvement,
one of their current core issues. As more technically inclined students, we have exposure
to sites and software that the borough has never explored before. A key consideration for
this idea is the concept of connection. Throughout State College, there are some citizens
that do not have the technology or technical proficiency to access the remote meetings.
The diverse demographics in State College indicate that a digital divide does exist. There
is an economic and social inequality in the population’s access and knowledge of
information and communication technologies. A way to reduce the impacts of the digital
divide may be to have remote meetings as well as in-person meetings. We would also
design the plan for remote access to be as simple and user-friendly as possible.
Additionally, with about 30,000 students being the majority of the borough’s population,
our plan could contain steps to try to incentivize students to participate in the meetings.
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Green Vision
Another suggested project for the borough is a revamping of the State College borough
website. In its current form, the website for the borough is difficult to navigate and find
certain information. A revamped website would be a great deal of benefit to the
community, as not all of State College’s constituents are as adept at navigating the web as
others. The website could also include not only generic information, but ways for the
people of State College to reach out to its local government, improving relations between
the borough and its people.
The third main idea that Anne provided is updating the hardware and software that the
borough uses. Anne said their hardware is approximately five to seven years old before it
gets replaced. Many problems can ensue from using older hardware and software. There
is no hardware safety net when the machine or interface eventually stops working.
Outdated operating systems can also create problems with compatibility to external
partners. A system update or service pack may cause old software to stop working.
Investing in new or upgraded systems should be looked at as insurance to the borough.
The challenge with this idea is estimating the budget and explaining that the financial risk
is more beneficial than the cost of doing nothing to their current systems.
Impressions
Our team was very impressed with State College as a Borough, both from an
infrastructure standpoint as well as for the services provided to Borough citizens. We
were encouraged by Ms. Messner’s willingness to explore technology-centric options for
improving current and future projects within the Borough. The support of the planning
division of the Borough will be crucial to advancing a number of the project ideas that
our team will present and discuss with Ms. Messner.
Ideas
Our team has developed a number of “Smart Cities” options for Ms. Messner to review.
First off, we would like to explore possible parking solutions to improve the current and
future parking situation in the Borough. One such option would be to integrate sensors
into current and future parking garages so that real-time parking data could be available
to people traveling into the Borough and searching for parking. This data could be
available through the Borough website or through a mobile application for easier access
during travel.
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Green Vision
Another idea centers on increasing citizen involvement in Borough meetings. We have
discussed ways of conducting online meetings so that more citizens are able to participate
in meetings, and also ways of engaging the student population in order to recruit more
diverse opinions on future Borough projects.
Conclusion
Explained above are the three main ideas that Anne brought to our attention. During our
interactive class discussion, more ideas were conceived. One idea is an affordable
housing solution to mitigate the high cost of housing for students and non-student
residents in the borough. Another idea is free Wi-Fi/high speed Internet throughout the
borough. Borough-wide Wi-Fi has been talked about but no further steps have ever been
taken. A third idea is expanded and diversified industry, meaning more employment
options for citizens than just with Penn State. Additionally, our group recognizes parking
as a considerable issue in State College. A potential idea to improve parking is using
sensors or data analysis for better design and planning of parking infrastructure. Green
Vision will continue to evaluate each of these ideas and generate others to consult with
the borough in a couple of weeks.
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