Space Syntax was featured in a “Top Tips” for City Mayors booklet, providing practical tips to mayors and officers, published by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Smart Cities.

This booklet was prepared prior to the General Election and provides practical tips for City Mayors from APPG members on how smart cities can be delivered effectively.

APPG on Smart Cities: “Top Tips” for City Mayors
12.04.2017

Space Syntax’s top tip for delivering Smart Cities

Cities are ultimately about people – their health, wealth and happiness. A Smart City is driven and developed by the people that live, work and play in it; the social and economic transactions that underpin prosperity are enabled through effective transport systems and high quality networks of streets and public spaces.

Space Syntax’s top tip for Mayors is to mobilise smart city technology and drive innovation in city planning through five SMART steps:

Sensing data on the social, economic and environmental performance of the city.

Mapping the data spatially to make it visually clearer.

Analysing patterns in the data to understand cause and effect.

Reacting to the analysis with data-driven policies and planning proposals.

Testing future policies and planning options using “predictive analytic” models.

We use these SMART steps to connect people, skills and data – creating a platform for decision making. Our recommendation is that Mayors use this platform to identify what cities need and act on this quickly.

Through access to deeper insights into how cities function, multidisciplinary expertise and models to interrogate the resilience of urban plans, Mayors can deliver smart, flexible future city environments – which can be modified, without the need to rework the vision.