IT leaders and elected officials from three towns embracing connected tech offer advice for those looking to follow in their smart city footsteps.
While smart city initiatives in big cities like Boston and New York may be getting all the hype, smaller cities and towns across the nation aren’t about to be left in the dust. With tech upgrades like smart street lights and stoplights carrying tangible cost and quality-of-life benefits for residents, towns have begun calling on connected tech deployments.
And these smaller metropolitan areas may, in fact, be finding their way to clear ROI for these projects faster than their big-city counterparts.
A recent survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and analytics firm IHS Markit found that “smaller cities tend to focus on smart city projects that deliver a clear, tangible return on investment, such as smart street lighting or resource management, rather than more experimental projects.”