Measuring city performance
Across the globe, people continue to flock to cities. Today, in fact, more than half the world’s population lives in an urban area. And according to a 2013 report by the United Nations, more than 75 percent of people will be living in cities by 2050.
To prepare for this population explosion and the resulting infrastructural and environmental headaches, many cities are realizing they need to rethink how they operate. Fortunately, there are some innovative organizations working to help cities do just that. In my last blog post, I talked about the City Protocol Society and its City Anatomy model, which uses human anatomy as a metaphorical basis for a common language to talk about three city systems: structure, society, and information.
Indicators of Health
The City Protocol Society is not stopping with the anatomy model, though. It is also addressing a very hot topic in cities right now: indicators. More specifically, cities are increasingly using key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure their health and sustainability. To gauge overall performance, cities are analyzing data such as the number of police offers per thousand residents, the amount of paved roads, and the number of schools.
One problem with indicators, however, is that there are so many of them in the typical city. And some indicators change every time there’s a new election. So how can city leaders know with certainty that their city is healthy?
The City Protocol Society has started to tackle that question head-on by mapping existing standard KPIs to the City Anatomy model and basing those KPIs on the anatomy’s subsystems: environment, infrastructure, built domain, culture, platform, functions, people, economy, and government.
The organization is starting this mapping process with the ISO 37120 standard, which is based around sustainable development of communities and indicators for city services and quality of life. Viewing this ISO standard as the clinical technical manual, the City Protocol Society is coming up with a city-friendly “city owner’s manual” cities can use.
Communicating and Learning
By mapping standard indicators like ISO 37120 to the City Anatomy, the City Protocol Society will give cities an effective tool for measuring their performance. But the organization also wants cities to use these indicators to better communicate with and learn from each other. For example, if a city’s indicators in a certain area are low, it might learn something valuable from a city with higher numbers in the same category. By opening a dialogue, the lower-performing city can learn how to improve in that area.
As city planners and architects gather around tables to address performance in this way, I am certain we will see more collaboration as cities continue to realize how much they have in common and how similar their goals are. Ultimately, this will help city leaders better prepare for the incredible population growth that is only just beginning to transform their cities.
Microsoft engages with cities around the world through Microsoft CityNext—an initiative to empower more sustainable, prosperous, and economically competitive cities—with a simplified approach that puts people first! For more information, please visit www.microsoft.com/citynext.
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