The first step: a data review?

You may be thinking right now about all the data your municipality holds in non-digital, semi-digital, or digital - but not shareable - means. From procurement information to maintenance records for the council’s own estate, municipalities the world over still struggle to know what data they currently collect, how they gather it, and for what purpose. Being able to persuade internal colleagues about the importance of a data review is often the first step to uncovering a trove of information that could, ultimately, help bring better value to the city. This is regardless of whether the data is made open or not - or whether this is a city-wide review or within a specific operational area.

Get your digital house in order: before the data crunch

Recognising that not only do we all horde data (it is estimated that the average organisation stores more than 50% of the data it collects without ever using it), the data we possess is not always fit for purpose (incomplete, error-strewn, non-compliant, not standard or duplicative)[^1]. Sometimes it remains elusive or can’t be read - tied up in vendor systems and not sharable. Tempted to clean your house?

How did we get here? Simply put - we’ve invented loads of data-producing tech that is clogging up our digital arteries. And, as the pace of tech innovation accelerates, data production will continue to grow accordingly. New data generating applications are coming on stream at a faster pace every day. In the 127 years it took the landline to be the communication tool of choice in 95% of US homes, the mobile phone could have reached market saturation six times over - and the smart-phone 15-fold for that matter[^2].

Some cities are locking down data storage - preventing downloads from external emails and many websites[^3] partially in response to security concerns - but this understandable response serves to only delay the problem and may lock city teams out of important conversations in the meantime. The projections are grim for those hoping for a reprieve: by 2025, it was widely estimated pre-pandemic that global data storage will have increased by 400% from 2018 (for the geeks among you, that’s a rise from 33 zettabytes to over 175 zettabytes)[^4].

The story doesn’t stop there. The pandemic triggered a new wave of rapid tech adoption - not just in relation to our integrated health responses - but in a whole host of ways that enable us all to adapt to this new world: checking how busy your local street is[^5], for example - or creating improved ways to contact friends and family for virtual face-to-face time - and, of course, the now ever-present remote working video calls[^6]. The pandemic experience underscores the immense power of system-wide shocks to provoke dramatically altered ways of working and living (and therefore intense periods of innovation). The rate of growth in both innovation and the ensuing data being generated is seemingly exponential and has serious implications for cities - both positive and concerning.

Let’s take a look at the positives: new applications will take data sophistication to a new level at pace. Innovations beckon cities with much opportunity to truly transform service delivery, while enabling them to ‘talk’ to these applications so that the circle is fully complete. Innovations like smart materials that produce and generate quantities of data about the environment around them, increasing rates of automation, smart vehicles and road infrastructure, smart waste technologies and more could revolutionise the way we live - and cities are eager to be part of the innovation process.

It is clear that with innovation comes demand for data. Innovators want access to city data in order to create new applications that will improve urban areas. Cities are also thirsty for data - looking for insights into how to find increased value from existing data, new ways of integrating different streams, and from new sources, such as AI-enabled machine learning applications.

There’s a problem though: as new technology comes on board, those that can afford to embrace its benefits are able to race ahead, while those less able to are in danger of falling short of the economic, environmental and social edge that it brings.

Data is, of course, the currency of this new tech-enabled economy, both feeding and deriving in ways that could only be dreamed of a few years ago. Less affluent towns and smaller cities are therefore at an increased disadvantage.

It is not an exaggeration to characterise the tech and data crunch as a serious threat, in spite of the opportunities it also brings. There is a real risk that cities - particularly the small and less affluent ones - will be effectively cyber-buried under a mountain of data, increasingly excluded from digital conversations as the 2020s progress[^7].