Planning and Governing Smart Cities

This unit examines the organizational, historical, and technical building blocks needed to plan, govern, and implement smart city initiatives. Students will study institutional roles, team formation, governance and policy, urban technologies, data practices, and security/privacy to create actionable, equity-focused plans for urban innovation.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the historical and socioeconomic impacts of the industrial revolutions and global contexts (including case examples such as Africa) to justify the need for smart city strategies
• Evaluate different smart city organizational models and governance frameworks and compare their strengths, weaknesses, and implications for equity and public accountability
• Apply team-building, planning, and codification techniques to develop a concise smart city implementation plan that addresses roles, responsibilities, timelines, and measurable outcomes
• Demonstrate the ability to select and assess urban technologies and city data practices by producing a risk-aware implementation brief that includes data governance, security and privacy controls, and potential innovation outcomes