The Nation's Marquee 'Smart City' Program Continues to Evolve

It was back in 2016 when Columbus, Ohio beat out 77 other cities to win a $40 million federal grant to deploy and test different kinds of cutting edge transportation technology, with the goal of tackling problems that ranged from traffic congestion to infant mortality.

A little over four years later, the Smart Columbus project is nearing its 2021 end date and remains a work in progress. Some projects have come to fruition, some are still pending, and others were set aside. And as with so much else in the country right now, the coronavirus has presented new challenges for the “smart city” initiative.

“Have we figured out how all these technologies actually impact peoples’ quality of life on a day-to-day basis? I think we’re still figuring that out,” said Jordan Davis, Smart Columbus director with the Columbus Partnership, a nonprofit group made up of local CEOs from businesses and other institutions that is working on the program.

“I think we’ve kind of gotten through the hype curve on some of this and now we’re iterating to think, okay, ‘The technology is good, the promise is right, we’re not there yet, but how else can we use it to bring about incremental change,’” she added. 

Experts say that the Columbus project—born out of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Smart City Challenge—is a useful experiment. Looking beyond the city, they also note that issues such as limited funding, privacy concerns and inadequate internet connectivity have generally proven to be stumbling blocks for the widespread adoption of smart city technology.

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