The newly-released report to the President of the United States, Technology and the Future of Cities, makes concrete policy recommendations for promoting innovation and improving lives, drawing from SFI research and insights about cities and urbanization.
A working group of experts, including SFI's Luís Bettencourt, contributed to the report, which was issued by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
Says Bettencourt: “The main societal challenges we face today are urban and must be addressed in cities. We tried to provide a map for how the powerful integration of systemic urban science, a number of emerging new technologies, and action by city governments and other stakeholders is now poised to make a big difference. I hope PCAST’s proposals for how the federal government can be a critical enabler of these processes can become a model for future integrated urban policy."
The report notes that with Big Data collection and analytics and a better understanding of urban dynamics than ever before, the time is right to promote technological innovation in cities. It makes a variety of recommendations for the federal government to engage with cities through place-based policy. And it suggests ways for individual cities to collect and share data to further innovation.
Read the full report on whitehouse.gov (February 23, 2016)