Thursday, May 1, 2014

Summary: Sustainable Cities in Latin America - AQ Winter 2014 Launch

By Carolina Ramirez

Throughout the Americas, different stakeholders are making cities smarter, more innovative, and more socially integrated.

Speakers:

Shaun Abrahamson, CEO and Co-Founder, Urban.Us
Jordi Botifoll, President, Latin America, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Horacio Terraza, Sector Coordinator, Infrastructure and Environment Sector, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
Alana Tummino, Senior Editor, Americas Quarterly; Director of Policy, Americas Society/Council of the Americas (Moderator)

Summary

On April 23, AS/COA and YPA collaborated with The LAB Miami to launch of Americas Quarterly’s Winter 2014 issue, “Our Cities, Our Future: Making Cities Healthy, Green, and Sustainable,” which looks at how urban sustainability efforts in the Americas translate across social classes and political administrations. As the Western Hemisphere faces growing urbanization and new challenges in governance, security, transportation, energy efficiency, and water and waste management, the panelists focused on the ways that different stakeholders are working together to make cities smarter, more innovative, and more socially integrated.

Why Is It Important to Create Smarter Cities? “Smart cities” are an essential way for developing countries to remain globally competitive, said Jordi Botifoll, president of Cisco Systems in Latin America. Although Latin American countries are growing, they have had difficulty staying globally competitive and remain fragile in changing economic cycles. Smart cities can make these countries less vulnerable by promoting innovation and job creation, he explained. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)’s Horacio Terraza agreed. “Cities in Latin America are the engine of the region,” he said. Terraza noted that 140 Latin American cities generate about 70 percent of the region’s GDP and are growing faster economically and demographically than the biggest cities in the region. Based on that potential, the IDB is collaborating with these emerging cities on sustainable development projects. But while the profits of sustainable development provide a business case for these types of projects, issues like climate change also make this kind of investment necessary, said Shaun Abrahamson, CEO and Co-Founder of Urban.Us. “We haven’t figured out how to solve some hard problems,” Abrahamson noted. Although investment and innovation are already growing in cities, Abrahamson said that more solutions are needed to address issues like water and energy management or mobility, which can be even more successful if they provide a return for investors, he added. How Technology Makes Cities More Sustainable Terraza explained that the IDB developed tools such as citizen polls and economic assessments to diagnose the needs of 50 cities in the region, including 150 indicators measuring the quality of health services, education, infrastructure, subways, energy, and transportation. In order to have an impact, governments must be able to track data about their cities and be open to citizen feedback. “We push to include people in the process,” he said. Emerging cities must also take steps toward sustainable infrastructure development. “It’s not just about investing in technology,” Botifoll pointed out. “It is about making the right decisions and integrating the different departments, flows, and decision-making processes.” Smart infrastructure development not only makes cities more efficient and integrated, but it also provides a foundation for entrepreneurs. For example, companies like Urban.Us—which helps startups address urban challenges ranging from homelessness to lack of digital connectivity—rely on the existing technological infrastructure that companies like Cisco develop. For investment projects that tackle issues such as energy efficiency, “you have to start from the assumption that you have stable connectivity,” Abrahamson said. “If you can make those assumptions, you can do magical things.” Sustainable Models Create More Inclusive Cities In addition to innovation, rapid urbanization also produces high levels of inequality. Terraza pointed out that despite technological advances, Latin America still suffers from critical levels of insecurity and poverty, with 25 percent of the population living in slums. And with 70 percent of the population living in low-lying areas or coastal regions, people living in poverty are vulnerable to environmental disasters. Sustainability and innovation can improve the lives of the urban poor by boosting levels of mobility. “Mobility is not only transportation, [it is] the possibility that anyone could work in any place. It [is] the flexibility to be more productive and efficient,” said Botifoll. Although technology is a great tool to make cities more integrated, citizens have to be included in these processes. “We can do whatever we want with technology, but we have to put people first,” Terraza noted. With increasing access to technological tools and infrastructure, citizen engagement can shape not only how people live, but how they imagine their cities. “We couldn’t conceive of these things 10 years ago,” Abrahamson commented. “The intersection of cheap hardware, ubiquitous smartphones, and dependable data lets us do things that were not imaginable.”

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Summary: Sustainable Cities in Latin America - AQ Winter 2014 Launch

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