City Competitiveness and Infrastructure

This chapter introduces a new framework called “I3: Instrument, interconnect, and cultivate intelligence framework.” This framework can be used to drive the transformation of today’s not so smart cities into the smart cities of tomorrow. In i3, instrumentation is used to collect data, which is important, because data provides measurability, and measurement can lead to improvement. Interconnection in i3 is used to discover associations and relationships between seemingly independent subsystems in a city. In i3, controlled experiments are easily setup and run to test each individual policy. The intelligence bit in i3 comes from being able to test specific policy hypotheses and conduct rigorous analysis and synthesis of the integrated data. The i3 framework helps city officials and researchers discover valuable knowledge, make informed decisions based on the results of various policies that are put in place, and facilitates the culture of experimentation at every policy decision level. The overarching goal in i3 is to discover routine and well-structured patterns in city management operations, turn them into best practices, and finally automate the execution of such practices so that the framework itself can take a major responsibility over city management. In this chapter, a roadmap is provided as a guideline for policymakers to successfully deploy i3 in their jurisdiction. By using i3 continually, a regular city can be transformed into a smart city faster.