Build back smarter: Five lessons for city innovation leaders from the pandemic

Despite the huge amount of disruption and tragedy caused by COVID-19, there are some important lessons that cities can take from the situation as they work to “build back better”.

In the face of a prolonged and unprecedented emergency, cities have been forced to innovate faster and more boldly because they have had no choice but to do things differently.

‘Smart city’ technologies have sometimes been accused of being a solution looking for a problem, but the pandemic has been an important demonstration of the benefits that digital technology and data-aggregating platforms can bring to pressing human problems.

While this momentum, alongside new federal funding, could now see an acceleration in digital infrastructure, the pandemic has also shown that some of the fundamentals still need to be addressed – from closing the digital divide to building trust with citizens and managing organisational change.

This report pulls together the key takeaways from a series of virtual roundtable meetings and interviews with digital leaders in US cities.