Agile Cities: Preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Global Future Council on Cities and UrbanizationAgile Cities Preparing for the Fourth Industrial RevolutionSeptember 2018 World Economic Forum91-93 route de la CapiteCH-1223 Cologny/GenevaSwitzerlandTel.: +41 (0)22 869 1212Fax: +41 (0)22 786 2744Email: contact@weforum.orgwww.weforum.org© 2018 World Economic Forum. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system. 3Agile CitiesIntroductionAgile BuildingsAgile LandAgile EnergyAgile MobilityAgile ITAgile SecurityAgile EducationAgile GovernanceConclusion481114172023263033Contents 4Agile CitiesForewordBy merging the biological, physical and digital worlds, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is transforming the way people live. The rate of change unleashed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution is truly unprecedented, impacting all sectors and industries across the globe.Cities, as global drivers of growth, must harness the opportunities and address the challenges brought about by this transformation. In this sense, “agility” has to be one of the defining characteristics of cities as they plan their future. To be agile is to move quickly and easily. But what exactly does this mean, and how can it be measured?This report by the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization begins to create a framework and provide metrics and guidelines for agility in the following key areas – city buildings, land, security, energy, mobility, education, governance and IT – that together will form the city agility index. Starting from city-specific case studies sourced through the Global Future Council, the report illustrates how cities are being agile and serve as potential examples that can be improved upon and adapted by other cities to help them transform.Abha Joshi-Ghani,Senior Adviser,Public-PrivatePartnerships, The World BankCo-chair of the Global Future Council on Cities and UrbanizationCarlo Ratti,Director,SENSEable CityLaboratory, MIT- Department ofUrban Studiesand PlanningCo-chair of the Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization 5Agile CitiesForewordAlice Charles,Lead, Cites, WorldEconomic Forum,SwitzerlandKnut Haanaes, Head of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Dean of the Global Leadership InstituteJulie Ziskind,Project Lead,Cites, GlobalLeadershipFellow, WorldEconomic Forum,SwitzerlandThe Fourth Industrial Revolution will unleash creativity with limitless potential. City administrators need to prepare by adapting the physical, digital and environmental elements of their cities to better respond to their citizens’ dynamic and constantly evolving needs. How successfully they do so will decide whether we continue today’s unsustainable patterns of urban development, or meet the urgent ambitions set forth in global accords such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Paris Agreement on Climate Change and New Urban Agenda. This white paper is the third in a series curated by the Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization. It builds on Data Driven Cities: 20 Stories of Innovation, which reviewed how cities can apply new ways of using data, and the best practices for improving urban liveability presented in Top Ten Urban Innovations. Together, these reports aim to encourage a robust multi-stakeholder conversation on urban innovation – asking what it means for the world’s urban centres to be fully prepared for the technological, social and economic changes of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – and to catalyse action by sharing best practices among cities. This work is a key part of the World Economic Forum’s new Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, created to support the scaling of entrepreneurial efforts that benefit the global good and dedicated to fostering innovation ecosystems in the world’s global cities. As entrepreneurship and innovation become the drivers of global, economic and social progress, and urban centres their stage, the World Economic Forum is in a unique position to support start-ups in their quest for success, scale and measurable global impact. As an independent and impartial organization, the Forum is able to harness its resources, networks and experience to accelerate new ideas and support cities as they prepare for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 6Agile Cities 7Agile CitiesIntroductionWe live in an increasingly urban world: 54% of the global population already reside in cities, and this will rise to an estimated 68% by 2050. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing the way in which these cities provide services to their residents. After years of building up both infrastructure and processes, cities must now break down siloes and invite innovation in order to fully benefit from the opportunities and meet the changes facing their populations.The need to be agile – to quickly adapt to changing needs – cuts across all areas of urban infrastr