Smarter New York City Case Studies

Goals:

  • Describe the process of how specific smart city innovations were initiated, developed and implemented within NYC agencies;

  • Reveal key roles, interactions, decisions, challenges and best practices that contributed to successful innovation and solutions;

  • Uncover behavioral aspects capable of hindering creativity and innovation across city agencies;

  • Identify institutional elements, incentives and contextual variables that fostered innovation;

  • Highlight organizational attributes that supported innovation;

  • Discuss how NYC’s programs compare to a sample of similar programs around the world;

  • Describe outcomes and discuss the assessment and impact of the initiatives;

  • Recommend next-generation enhancements to these programs; discuss how NYC’s innovation policies can facilitate growth of these programs; discuss the “way forward” for optimizing benefits for NYC;

  • Offer innovation maps, tools and methodologies to help city administrations and municipalities innovate building incrementally upon what exists;

  • Showcase NYC as an incubator and test-bed for innovative smart city initiatives and help reimagine bottom-up possibilities that emerge from within public administration.

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Read the summaries of the 12 cases:

A City Strategy with Global Relevance: OneNYC & the SDGs

Though the new global agenda (Sustainable Development Goals) has been agreed to by 193 national governments, widespread achievement cannot occur without the full support of and partnerships with the world’s cities. New York City is taking a proactive approach to ensure a sustainable future. Its 2015 plan –“One New York: The Plan for a Strong and Just City” (OneNYC) – recognizes that New York is a tale of two cities, struggling with the same insurmountable challenges persistent in many large cities around the world: income polarization, social tension, aging infrastructure and lack of affordable housing. This case study will show how NYC has dealt with data, metrics and cross-agency collaboration to translate the global sustainable development agenda to the local level through a series of plans over time, including PlaNYC and the most recent OneNYC. We furthermore reveal how NYC has developed and implemented technology and data systems for the effective monitoring and evaluation of these ambitious plans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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