Building Smart Cities With, Not For, Our Residents Rob Phocas, Energy & Sustainability Manager, City of Charlotte I like the latest “smart” technology as much as the next person. Be it a smart streetlight, a digital kiosk, or a solar powered bench that charges your smart device and counts passers-by, it is hard not to find futuristic features appealing. But as a sustainability director and public servant, I must look past that cool factor. At a recent smart cities conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the conference organizers asked the presenters to answer a question during their remarks: “Can innovative smart city technology create coherent and inclusive cities?” For those following the arch of the smart cities conversation, this is a very timely question, as we see more and more cities beginning to focus their smart city efforts on their residents first rather than on the technologies. What started as an industry-lead effort focused on promoting the latest gadgets to municipalities is shifting to a municipal-lead effort to understand which of these gadgets can help staff achieve their mayor and/or city council’s goals of creating a great quality of life for their residents.