Toward Engaged, Equitable, and Smart Communities: Lessons From West Baltimore

Abstract

Smart city investments are happening in many cities around the United States. All too often, however, smart city interventions are solutions in search of problems, rather than solutions that seek to meet the needs of cities and their most vulnerable residents. This study asks how the engagement of communities can help to improve smart city investments that aim to address the needs and concerns of low-income communities of color. Through focus groups and surveys in West Baltimore, Maryland, the research showed how smart city technologies can aid residents in navigating uneven regional geographies of opportunity, addressing the existing digital divide, and developing plans that leverage their creative problem-solving capacities and existing uses of technology to address critical community needs and priorities. The study reveals how engaging communities at the front end of planning switches the focus away from technology-driven solutions to more equitable, community-centered, and place-based smart city plans and investments.