Digital cities, resilient cities delivering urban resilience through digital solutions

Cities are home to over 50% of the world’s population, a figure likely to rise to almost 70% by 2050.1 Supporting this trend requires urban development that is ‘smart’, efficient, sustainable and resilient. These objectives are intrinsically linked to digital innovation. Cities and city-regions globally are embedding digital technologies and introducing new digital services to serve government, business and community users. People in cities depend on effective critical infrastructure systems (e.g. energy, water, transport, wastewater, solid waste and communications) and social infrastructure (e.g. health and social care, police and prisons, fire and emergency services) in their daily lives. All of these services are increasingly underpinned by digital technologies. For example, digital systems enable f inancial transactions, remote communications between people and businesses, and the security and safety of our buildings. They also allow the automation and management of essential services like public transport and energy transmission and provide advanced analytics to anticipate changes in baseline conditions or behaviors that may affect city services.2 This shift towards digital solutions has accelerated in recent years as new digital capabilities come on stream and technologies become more widely available and affordable. The push towards digital solutions became particularly evident during and following the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, it is easy to take the seemingly ‘invisible’ digital services for granted. User experience and ubiquitous connectivity create a seamless digital layer in many cities (especially in the Global North). A city’s digital foundation is not really felt until something goes wrong. Reliable, robust and resilient infrastructure has been acknowledged – among other things – as a key driver of local and national economic growth3 and a low carbon economy; cities need to take a resilience-centered approach to implementing digital solutions across all aspects of their lifecycle (i.e. planning, designing, operating and maintaining).

source :

https://resilientcitiesnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Digital-Resilience-Report-HQ.pdf