Smart Cities New York
City leaders and civic experts in New York participated in a
“co-creation” exercise powered by City Possible. They shared the challenges facing the future of their cities and co-created ideas to help solve them.
Smart Cities New York
by the numbers
See which challenges were most top of mind
for Smart Cities New York attendees.
MOBILITY
INFRASTRUCTURE
GOVERNANCE
HOUSING
Imagine how much more is possible when cities co-create together.
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"City transportation system
in a city with a car culture."
Pedro, Boca Raton
ENVIRONMENT
Technology
Tourism
ECONOMY
"Safety and space for cyclists sharing the roadways."
Jon, Columbus
Click on cities below to see challenges and ideas
shared by city leaders around the globe.
Co-Creating la
ciudad del futuro
Co-Creating the
City of the Future
Co-Creating the
City of the Future
Smart Cities New York attendees let their voice be heard on a variety of important topics facing the future of our cities:
New York
Challenge: Water leaks and potholes
Thanks to everyone who helped surface challenges and innovative solution ideas at Smart Cities New York.
City Possible brings together cities and a united private sector to create more inclusive and sustainable cities.
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Learn more about the City Possible model for co-developing, piloting, and scaling solutions for cities’ most pressing urban challenges.
New York
Challenge: How to own and charge an electric car in an urban row house when there's no parking spot?
New York
Idea: Separate bike lanes that safely allow bikers and cars to commute together.
New York
Idea: Seamless bike and subway in New York City.
New York
Challenge: Inefficient and outdated public transit infrastructure.
New York
Challenge: Rent for small businesses continues to rise.
New York
Challenge: Lack of affordable housing.
New York
Idea: Trucks that must park or double park to pick up or drop off goods would cause less congestion if they did so at hours less prone to high volumes of traffic. Perhaps at night?
New York
Idea: Funding of #InvestInSkillsNY is a demonstrable $175M investment by NYS to link workforce development to economic development to train New Yorkers for the future
of work.
New York
Idea: We should create more bike paths particularly uptown to incentivize people to use citibike and allow time to revamp the subway
New York
Challenge: Outmoded transportation systems that do not recognize new patterns of living and working centered around formerly non core districts.
New York
Idea: Inclusion (more specifically education) for disabled and elderly
in the city.
ANTWERP
Challenge: Governance on city regional challenges.
BALTIMORE
Challenge: Not enough urban farms.
BANGKOK
Idea: Increase car pool and reduce using all kinds
of packaging (bring own cloth bags).
BOCA RATON
Challenge: City transportation system in a city with a car culture.
New York
Challenge: Identification process and user experience through DMV or applying for visas.
CHICAGO
Challenge: Not enough
green space.
COLUMBUS
Challenge: Safety and
space for cyclists sharing
the roadways.
DETROIT
Challenge: Addressing water contamination issues due to lead and aging infrastructure where 25% of the worlds fresh water exists - the Great Lakes.
DETROIT
Challenge: Urban blight due to population loss leads to vast areas of unused space and low population density. This makes traditional transit solutions ineffective.
New York
Challenge: Too much traffic on Queens Boulevard due to
Citibike lanes.
MADRID
Challenge: Traffic
and waste solutions.
New York
Idea: When transit workers go on strike, bus drivers continued driving and transporting citizens but not charging fares. This puts the pressure on leadership rather than stress on citizens.
NEW HAVEN
Challenge: Transportation is a critical problem for us and the surrounding suburban towns. Public transport is slow and unreliable and the number of cars is a constant creator of inefficiency and danger.
OBERLIN
Challenge: Figuring out how to retrofit buildings to utilize only renewables. It is challenging to find cost effective measures when natural gas is so inexpensive.
PERTH
Challenge: Ensuring disparate individual utilities coordinate capital investment decisions to enable development.
PRISHTINA
Challenge: Traffic jam
and parking.
PRISHTINA
Challenge: Traffic is terrible. Potholes are a problem. Illegal construction and lack of cycling lanes.
New York
Challenge: Lack of
multi-modal transit integration.
New York
Challenge: Roosevelt Island - no integrated approach to public buildings on the island.
New York
Challenge: Urban development is necessary but the mess, like traffic jams, they create need a solution.
New York
Challenge: Transparency. Educating civilians of local and state governments, organizational structures, allocation of resources, accurate demographics, etc.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Challenge: Green buildings.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Challenge: How to regulate and make use of the boom of e-scooters around the city to promote public safety while continuing to promote alternate mobility options.
VANCOUVER
Challenge: No sidewalks or bike lanes to school.
Common Themes
Throughout the co-creation exercise, the challenges and ideas shared by participants surfaced several recurring themes deemed critical to how we shape our cities in the future.
MOBILITY
ENVIRONMENT
HOUSING
INFRASTRUCTURE
GOVERNANCE
MOBILITY
How can outmoded transportation systems address evolving population density and commuting trends more agilely?
infrastructure
How can we better scale infrastructure in a coordinated way across utilities to ensure one advancement doesn’t negatively impact another?
GOVERNANCE
How do we more efficiently engage city residents to help increase policy transparency, program awareness and
social inclusion?
HOUSING
How do we ensure the growth of cities does not create a cost-prohibitive living environment for certain segments of society?
ENVIRONMENT
How can a city advance sustainable approaches to urban development to reduce its carbon footprint in the world?
SEE CHALLENGES
SEE IDEAS
Mobility
29%
Infrastructure
23%
Governance
13%
Housing
10%
Environment
6%
Technology
6%
Others
13%
Mobility
25%
Infrastructure
50%
Employment
12.5%
Inclusion
12.5%
Challenge
Challenge
"Urban blight due to population loss leads to vast areas of unused space and low population density. This makes traditional transit solutions ineffective additionally high poverty levels and unbanked citizens make new mobility solutions less accessible."
Challenge
William, Detroit
"Traffic and waste solutions."
Challenge
Diego, Madrid
"When transit workers go on strike, bus drivers continued driving and transporting citizens but not charging fares. This puts the pressure on leadership rather than stress on citizens."
Idea
Sara, Middletown
"Transportation is a critical problem for us and the surrounding suburban towns. Public transport is slow and unreliable and the number of cars, as a result is a constant creator of inefficiency and danger."
Challenge
Ken, New Haven
"Trucks that must park or double park to pick up or drop off goods would cause less congestion if they did so at hours less prone to high volumes of traffic. Perhaps at night?"
Idea
Lawrence, New York
"Outmoded transportation systems that do not recognize new patterns of living and working centered around formerly non core districts."
Challenge
Liz, New York
"Traffic jam and parking."
Challenge
Blendi, Prishtina
"Lack of multi-modal
transit integration."
Challenge
Mike, New York
"How to regulate and make use of the boom of e-scooters around the city to promote public safety while continuing to promote alternate mobility options."
Challenge
Paige, Washington D.C.
INFRASTRUCTURE
"Increase car pool. Reduce using all kinds of packaging (bring own cloth bags)."
Idea
Wilaiporn, Bangkok
"Addressing water contamination issues due to lead and aging infrastructure where 25% of the worlds fresh water exists - the Great Lakes."
Challenge
Paul, Detroit
"Too much traffic on Queens Boulevard due to Citibike lanes."
Challenge
Milin, New York
"How to own and charge an electric car in urban row house (no parking spot)?"
Challenge
Matt, New York
"Separate bike lanes that safely allow bikers and cars to commute together."
Idea
Michael, New York
"Seamless bike and subway in NYC."
Challenge
Nicolas, New York
"Inefficient and outdated public transit infrastructure."
Challenge
Sungmoon, New York
"We should create more bike paths particularly uptown to incentivize people to use citibike and allow time to revamp the subway."
Idea
Brooke, New York
"Ensuring disparate individual utilities coordinate capital investment decisions to enable development."
Challenge
Suzanne, Perth
"Traffic is terrible. Potholes are a problem. Illegal Construction. Lack of cycling lanes."
Challenge
Celik, Prishtina
"Urban development is necessary but the mess like traffic jams they create need a solution."
Challenge
Vivek, New York
GOVERNANCE
"Governance on city regional challenges."
Challenge
Ties, Antwerp
"Water leaks
and pot holes."
Challenge
Saras, New York
"Roosevelt Island - no integrated approach to public buildings on the island."
Challenge
Michelle, New York
"Transparency. Educating civilians of local and state governments, organizational structures, allocation of resources, accurate demographics, etc."
Challenge
Gary, New York
HOUSING
"Affordable housing."
Challenge
Tiasia, New York
"Affordable housing."
Challenge
Dan, New York
"Affordable and sustainable housing."
Challenge
Whitney, New York
MOBILITY
ENVIRONMENT
"Not enough
urban farms."
Challenge
Karina, Baltimore
"Figuring out how to retrofit buildings to utilize only renewables. It is challenging to
find cost effective measures when natural gas is so inexpensive."
Challenge
Linda, Oberlin
TECHNOLOGY
"Not enough
green space."
Challenge
Chuck, Chicago
"Green buildings."
Challenge
Wasiliki, Washington D.C.
TOURISM
"Identification process and user experience through DMV or applying for visas."
Challenge
Chuck, Chicago
ECONOMY
"Rent for small businesses continues to rise."
Challenge
Qing, New York
SEE CHALLENGES
SEE IDEAS
