For the last fifteen years the experts have been predicting that the wave of the future would be ushered in by advances in telecommunication. People would live in Telluride and work in New York. The wave has not yet come ashore, but it is within sight. Communities today ignore the trends at their peril, as the communities of the past which ignored the proposed routes of the railroads or the interstates became ghost towns, so the communities of today may face obsolescence if they do not prepare. The structure and nature of work and the delivery of goods and services is fundamentally changing. Community leaders today face a range of challenges as they attempt to meet the pressures on basic services and to provide adequate infrastructure for the future. Many predict a future for organizations that can not be estimated based on a straight line projection of the past. We can expect a magnitude of change similar to the shift from agricultural production to manufacturing. The basic precepts of a knowledge-based society include instantaneous international linkages, access to data bases that provide more than just data but useful information, synergistic relationships with collaborators, a definition of community that is not bound by geographical boundaries but rather communities of interest that span the globe, opportunities for continuous learning, and a pace of activity that has never been experienced. Today's companies measure competitive advantage in hours, not weeks, with regard to their ability to respond to customers and to maximize service. Communities that provide the opportunities for individuals and organizations to respond rapidly and maximize their effectiveness are the ones who will "win."This project provides the opportunity for government, municipal planning organizations, businesses, and educational institutions to participate in facilitating the transportation and economic development needs of their communities by enhancing the environment in which they operate. Previous projects conducted by both the public and private sectors have focused on the supply side. They make the assertion that: "If we provide the bandwidth for advanced telecommunications, then business and consumers will find a way to use it." Those projects are yielding lessons about the obstacles presented by this approach which is leading to a renewed focus on the demand side of the equation. This approach emphasizes that: "If we foster the correct telecommunications environment, that brings together organizational as well as physical infrastructure, then user applications will flow from the synergy created through enhanced collaboration.

What is a Smart Community?

The term "smart communities" has been used to identify those municipalities which have adopted this paradigm. Specifically, a smart community is any group of individuals, organizations and institutions located in the same area that have made a conscious effort to employ information technology to transform a major portion of their region. Cooperation between government, industry, and academe, rather than one group acting alone, is preferred. Also, the technology must be transforming, rather than incremental.Some believe that the desire to create a smart community is nothing more than a pipe dream. However, it would be a mistake to dismiss the smart city as merely another 'Utopian' project of the kind designed to excite public interest in new technology, and without a grounding in the real world. The smart community can provide a model for the future communications landscape precisely because it works within the limits and capabilities of current technology. The broadband networks capable of delivering the range of applications and services being tested will soon be available. For example, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT), of Japan, has announced plans to provide full fiber access to its large and small business customers by the end of the century, and to residential subscribers by 2015. In the light of such developments, the smart city is not so much a Utopian vision, but a realistic attempt to define the future role of communications technologies and services within communities.

The Vision

Creators of tomorrow's "City of the Future" face a formidable challenge: Are they part of a social phenomenon that is destined to stall or implode . . . or do they represent a vibrant force, capable of building on the knowledge they have accumulated, adapting to a rapidly changing world and community needs, and ultimately achieving positive, lasting social change in their communities? Many expect this period to result in positive social change by using electronic communications as a vital enabler to bring people together, to share, learn, and work together to solve problems. It is clear, however, that the surge in interest must be matched with an influx of significant funding and a step-wise increase in the functionality and quality of the underlying applications. The applications that constitute a smart community need to represent the interests of the community it serves. Many of today's groups must make a concerted effort to move beyond their current scope, which often represents only the interests and views of the people who organized and built the technology. The programs that will succeed in the long run will be those that have maintained a focus on the multiplicity of needs in the community and have effectively engaged the full spectrum of their neighbors. The key to the successful implementation of smart community applications is to focus on demand issues. People are looking for results, solutions to their problems  not network access. That means seeking out and involving those individuals in the communities most capable of making things happen and ushering in changes. What's needed are people who are willing to ask what is needed and get things done. The buy-in from community leaders is the best insurance that the applications can address the broad range of challenges posed by the community. The goal of a smart community is to leverage the synergies among these institutions and the existing community infrastructure to expand and enhance economic and social activity. The community infrastructure consists of the institutions and services that support the needs of the community. Examples include: expertise and training, capital resources, technology institutions, and physical infrastructure. It can be argued that the telecommunications infrastructure, necessary to empower development of a smart community, is already in place. However, these telecommunication elements are floating independently, needing to be brought together for improved communication, coordination and hopefully collaboration. The ability to structure an environment that fosters new application development requires significant skills in the arena of "organizational development". Organizational development must be considered strategically or else tremendous energy can be expended and wasted in the process of organizing and leaving little energy for the actual mission of the enterprise.

Cautions

Though proponents are enthusiastic about the potential of smart communities and the general consensus is that they can make a positive contribution to people's lives at the city or neighborhood level, critics have raised important issues. All powerful technologies, like medicine, have unintended side effects. Information technologies have enormous potential for leveraging the wrong things. Some of the most difficult issues, such as privacy and security, equity of access, healthy civic participation, and social isolation are going to be arenas where the technology's potential for destructive side effects are played out. For example, critics question whether electronic communication will replace what little face-to-face contact there already is between people; they also see networks and communication technologies in general as a serious threat to society. They fear that these networks will only further isolate and distance us from our neighbors. There is also concern that increased use of technology will create a division between those who can participate in the discussion of community and governance and those who have no access to the system. They question whether these new systems will disenfranchise parts of the population even further and whether the word "community" only means traditional computer users who are usually upperincome, male, and young. Frequent criticism also comes from commercial providers who object to community networks providing free or lowcost Internet access, thereby taking business away from the commercial providers. Smart Communities, large or small, must establish an economic model for their sustained operation. It is a question of economic viability, not a debate over "free access." If technology enthusiasts are allowed to monopolize the development of a smart community, they are not likely to address such concerns effectively.

The Participants

Who are the people "doing" the work and implementing the ideas to create smart communities? What organizations tend to take the leadership roles and what are their motivations? This section describes the major players within the community who are grappling with the challenges of Smart Communities.

Community Networking Ogranizations

These are groups of people who are using the existing technology infrastructure and are taking an active interest in shaping the design of new network systems. Their motivation is centered around the following areas:

• The desire that the online medium be one in which public access and content generated by the public are protected.
• The desire to create important local content not available on other kinds of networks.
• The desire to bring together people within local communities and focus their attention on key issues within the community for debate, deliberation and resolution.
• The desire to organize human communication and information relevant to the communities' needs and problems on a timely basis.
• The desire to engage and involve, on an ongoing basis, the participation of a broad base of citizens.
• The desire to include people in low; income neighborhoods, those with disabilities or limited mobility, and the struggling middle class.
• The desire to make basic services available at a fair and reasonable cost, for broadbased access within the community.

Influencing Organizations

The public sector, non-profit institutions and advocacy groups are coordinating various community resources both in the role of a supervisor and as a supporter of new programs. Their motivation is centered around the following areas:

• The need for governments to find effective, inexpensive ways of disseminating information to citizens and delivering government services.
• The renewed importance of community and local initiatives as focal points for problem solving and identity.
• The need for government to look for ways to support economic development.

Infrastructure Providers

Several business organizations are involved in supplying products and services to both businesses and residents. These companies include such groups as Internet providers, telephone companies, and cable operators. Their motivation is centered around the following areas:

• The interest of major telecommunications providers is in growing new markets that require expanded use of phone lines.
• The desire by local and national arms of the public broadcast network and local cable access providers to extend their reach into cyberspace.

Business Consumers

Companies, not directly involved in providing technology, see an opportunity to leverage existing infrastructure in innovative ways to meet new market demands. Their motivation is centered around the following areas:

• To stimulate and support new business development and the expansion of existing industry clusters, to attract new industry, and to assist communities in preparing for the contingencies these activities require.
• The emergence of the Internet as the primary, interlinked telecomputing network.

Sociological Effects

There is a growing view that the strands of community life are unraveling--violence, alcohol and drug use, crime, alienation, degradation of the political process, and ineffectual social institutions area increasingly accepted as inevitable. Computers and communication technology are often touted as saviors of the modern age, but the benefits of the "computer revolution" are unevenly distributed and the lack of access to communication technology contributes to the widening gulf between socioeconomic classes. Some advocates believe that computer technology in concert with other efforts could play a role in rebuilding community life by improving communication, economic opportunity, civic participation, and education. Whether these aims are realized will depend to a large degree on a diverse group of community leaders, whose experience and expertise make them vital participants in the development of future systems. In contrast, cities that will not or cannot adapt run the risk of being left behind of face stagnation or decline. Community members and activists all over the world have developed and are developing communityoriented community networks with a local focus. These community networks, some with user populations in the tens of thousands, are intended to advance social goals such as building community awareness, encouraging involvement in local decision making, or developing economic opportunities in disadvantaged communities. They are intended to provide "one-stop shopping" using community-oriented discussions, question-and-an swer forums, electronic access to government employees and information, access to social services, email, and in many cases, Internet access. The most important aspect of their community networks, however, is their immense potential for participation.An ad hoc alliance of librarians, educators, network and bulletin board systems users, community activists, social service providers, government agencies, and concerned computer professionals is developing around the community network issue. Several distribution lists now exist on the Internet providing active forums on these issues. There are an increasing number of conferences and workshops on these topics, including two influential round tables organized by Richard Civille for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and for the Center for Civic Networking. Organizations increasingly are rallying around this issue.

Economic Effects

New ways of working will have an impact on cities, but that impact will be more pronounced in some sections of some cities than others. New technology is as likely to be a force for continuity in the structure of cities (with more "intelligent" vehicles, telematics for transport systems, and new propulsion technologies) as a force for change. The reasons for access to city centers in the wealthier parts of the world may have changed, but the imperatives for access will remain. Personal preference and economic forces will combine to make personal motorized mobility still the first choice and public transport-a congestion and poverty related alternative. Adaptation of people, institutions, and the built environment will be important to community economic survival. In particular, new local and regional strategies are even more critical if communities are expected to respond to these fundamental changes. Efforts to better integrate the social and economic prospects of distressed communities and the lives of disadvantaged people are an amalgam of disjointed activities, usually with very little overlap, cooperation, or coordination. Moreover, many economic and community development programs do not work closely with industry and, as a result, have limited effectiveness. These programs are often bureaucratic, content with supplying general information rather than real services, passive in orientation, and uncertain in how to develop working relationships with private firms. The best programs are customer-oriented, focused on continuous interaction with all community leaders, and flexible to respond to changing user demands. Non-governmental organizations and public-private partnerships often do this best. Efforts are underway in a number of locations throughout the world to develop partnerships that build closer ties among industry, education, healthcare and local government. These partnerships have played a key role in bringing community leaders together and marshaling the resources of the region.

Government and IT

These are not easy times for government. The federal budget deficit has been a serious economic problem and political fact of life for many years. Until recently however, states and localities escaped chronic deficits. Most state deficits resulted from one-time shifts in spending or revenue that could be addressed within the confines of a single budget year. By the early 1990s, it had become clear that something else was happening. In 1991, New York posted the nation's largest-ever state budget deficit, $6 billion--its fourth consecutive multibillion-dollar shortfall. The following year, California set a new record for state budget deficits--$11 billion. According to the Center for the Study of the States, most states now have "structural deficits" (Gold, 1991). They are not facing occasional mismatches between spending and revenue. Instead, their tax systems now are unable to produce enough revenue to maintain current services. To complicate matters, public expectations for the level and quality of government services were formed in better economic times. Those expectations have grown while satisfaction with their fulfillment has steadily declined. In the past few years, it has become evident that cutting fat, eliminating waste, and preventing abuse--the management watchwords of the 1980s--are not nearly enough. Government needs to rethink its methods and restructure its approach to providing services. In the past, major operational reforms have rested on he infusion of new tax dollars and new people. Today, these solutions are no longer available. Communities need to learn to make more effective use of a fixed or shrinking pool of public dollars. Improvements in operations and services must occur within these resource constraints. To meet the rising tide of dissatisfaction and ever-increasing costs, government managers of the 1990s need more than admonishment to change their thinking. They need new tools for designing and managing programs. Strategic use of information technology may offer one of the few promising options for lasting improvement. Although technology has been a means for past innovations, it has typically been used to "computerize," to automate existing processes without significantly improving them. To adopt a popular metaphor, we have paved over the old cowpaths without asking where the best pastures are or whether we ought to be farmers. This is where the public-sector conversations about smart communities begins.

Education

The demand for more cost effective delivery mechanisms for education is expected to dramatically increase over the next decade. The business community has recognized the need for an educated workforce that will support its industries into the next century. Given the drive for global competitiveness, education is both an economic development issue as well as a human development issue. No institution is adequately equipped to handle the multiple, often competing objectives of education. But within the immediate community are a number of organizations dealing with the same students and their families, and armed with expertise, constituency support, organization resources, and information. With effective horizontal linkages, departments of social services, health, and economic development, among others, could make important contributions education. These organizations do not necessarily have to grow in order to better serve their constituencies, nor do they need to absorb an ever-increasing share of public resources. Rather, they need to work differently and together. Understanding the range of relationships at work in a given policy area is the first step toward improvement. Once these relationships are well defined, inter- and intraorganizational information systems can provide the linkages necessary for effective action. These, in turn, can help bring about the synergies needed to address the community's problems.

Wellness/Health Care

The hope for the future of health care is improved affordability, quality and access through the use of advanced telecommunications and computing technologies for the delivery of services. Health care delivery services and research are information intensive. Health professionals collect, create, and use large amounts of information while caring for patients; the clerical tasks involved in maintaining records are time consuming and divert time and resources away from patient care. Sometimes previously collected information is not available when and where it is needed; the difficulties of communicating information can delay appropriate care or lead to expensive duplication of tests. Health care providers, suppliers, payers, and others manage large amounts of information for administrative purposes, and the costs of processing this information adds to the cost of health care. In addition, providers, payers, medical researchers, and government policy makers need accurate information about the outcomes of various procedures and interventions in order to judge their effectiveness. This information is becoming especially important in decision-making in managed care environments. Consumers, as well, could benefit from information on medical outcomes and on relative costs of care in order to make informed choices about the selection of providers and health plans. More use of information technology could address some of these information needs. Information technology might improve patient care by freeing health professionals from the burden of clerical tasks and by allowing both clinical and administrative information to be communicated more quickly and accurately. Automation of administrative tasks might help health care providers and payers to monitor and control costs more. Data on the effectiveness of medical interventions could be collected and analyzed more easily using computer-based records with standard formats or data elements, and appropriate information could be available to providers, payers, researchers, government agencies, and consumers. While information technology may reduce costs or make some services more accessible, benefits might accrue only after large investments in infrastructure have been made. Further, there are barriers to implementing computer-based applications that may prevent their widespread use or may reduce the level of expected benefits.

Business and Industry

The private sector's vision of a "Smart Community" is to create an advanced information infrastructure and develop the collective ability to use it. The goal is to facilitate the construction of a pervasive, high speed communications system and information services that will benefit all sectors of the community: education, healthcare, local government, business and the home. The infrastructure implemented will help transform the way people work, live and learn. The United States is an ideal location for this activity since the nation enjoys world class research universities, national laboratories and high technology industries. Many communities are technically literate, using computers on the job and in their homes. The technologies needed to get started are already on the market. California, in particular, has hosts of businesses working on applications such as telecommuting, geographic information systems, distance learning, networked classrooms and community information services. The technologies and products developed to build and take advantage of the infrastructure will be marketable around the world as more and more communities move into the information age and connect themselves electronically. At least four trends are creating this opportunity:

• The cost of powerful computers has dropped to within reach of most households.
• Computer power is enabling easier use software and applications.
• Telecommunications and broadcasting are moving to digital technologies, merging data communications, telecommunications and entertainment.
• The nation's leadership is extending beyond its investment in research for high performance computers and communications to applications that will leverage a privately constructed national information infrastructure.

The infrastructure created will make contributions to the business environment and will support collaborations between suppliers and vendors and allow businesses, healthcare providers and local governments to be more responsive to their customers. It will contribute to quality of life by allowing more workers to telecommute or to advance job skills by taking interactive or cross continent classes in their homes. As businesses depend increasingly on partnerships to control costs and speed time to market, they need a high quality communications infrastructure to support distributed teams. High-speed networks could allow two-way videoconferencing on the desktop, rapid delivery of part designs to fabrication shops, and simulation of circuit designs on remote super computers. Electronic commerce services can reduce the costs of placing and processing orders, publishing product catalogs and delivering software to customers. The network would make it easier for people to work at home or at local telecommuting centers. This would get cars off the road and increase employee job satisfaction, thereby reducing the turnover of valuable workers. As broadband interactive technologies become pervasive, communities would need people to install the new wires, fiber and communications equipment. As demand grows, electronics companies would hire people to increase production of computers and networking equipment. Software engineers would be needed to develop new communications services and tools to manage the network. Entrepreneurs will develop and market new information services; information brokers, editors and librarians might emerge to help people navigate the wealth of information services. Job openings and resumes could be listed on-line, amid a rich set of new products are expected that will take advantage of this new informationrich environment.

Building SmartCommunitiesª

Communities are increasingly shaped by the continuous and real-time transactions enabled through new information technologies. Because the variety and scope of these transactions are not constrained by space and time, technology has an ever expanding impact on California's communities. This phenomenon may ultimately lead to new growth for some communities and decline for others. The leveraging of both hard infrastructure (fiber optic cable, microwave towers, digital switches, etc.) and soft infrastructure (resident experts, non-profit organizations, civic programs, etc.) will bring new opportunities to communities in the post-industrial era. By letting activity be physically farther apart, yet functionally very close, technology such as trains, electric trolleys, cars, and trucks helped shape the first industrial city and later helped create the first mass production metropolis. Today, information technologies are playing a similar role. However, as much as technology enables work to be done anywhere, large- and medium-sized communities continue to provide advantages for industry. One important advantage is that communities offer an environment conducive to innovation and learning. Second, larger communities enjoy a more diverse labor supply, larger consumer markets, more frequent air transportation, and availability of repair and technical services. Finally, the advantages for people include higher-quality medical care, cultural and educational institutions, and a larger employment base.

Summary

• A community that wants to survive in the knowledge society has to do what it can to be a "SmartCommunity."
• The wires, tools, the individuals and the organizations--all four taken together and aimed at community needs is required to create a SmartCommunity.
• Smart use of collaborative technologies throughout the community will lead to non-technical collaboration, and increase the entire community's ability to solve problems.
• Projects which promote a SmartCommunity will reflect the needs and interests of that community in its broadest definition, engaging all members.
• Communities should get the devil's advocates involved and keep them involved--they may have some ideas for how to mitigate the potential destructive side effects of SmartCommunity development.