Designing Better, Smarter, More Sustainable and Secure Cities

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Edited by Dr. Joseph N. Pelton and Dr. Indu Singh

"This book is about the future. More precisely it is about the future of cities and how they ultimately shape the future of our planet. The predominant influence of cities comes from many sources. It is here that the majority of all humans live. It is here that new technologies and major scientific discoveries and inventions arise. It is here that new strategies for sustainable development, renewable energy, and combating climate change arise. These communities — with their enhanced systems, their new technology, and their new ways of re-inventing the urban experience — will influence global evolution, spur technological advancement and redefine the human experience in the 21st century. The future city is about human potential and overcoming the challenges that face Homo Sapiens at this critical time of our evolution. With each decade the challenges only seem to escalate."

The Evolution of Urban Communities

In Future Cities, three authors – futurists, urban experts and systems architects – consider how the demands of the 21st Century will reshape the places where half of the world’s population lives. From the history of urban development to the challenges of climate change and terrorism, they show how technology advances have shaped cities and how the demands of urban living will drive major improvements in energy use, transportation, communications, public safety, security, and human welfare. They challenge policymakers to incorporate the new tools of urban development into their thinking – but even more importantly, to understand the urgent need for a new approach to economic growth, one that severs the ties between production and pollution, between urbanization and degraded quality of life, and between greater individual liberty and increased vulnerability to threat.

Dr. Joseph Pelton (left) is the award-winning author of over 25 books related to the future and the impacts of technology. He is the former Dean of the International Space University and former head of Strategic Policy at Intelsat.

Christine Robinson (center), award-winning author, is internationally recognized for her contributions to Enterprise Architecture, Business Process Management and Emergency Preparedness-Disaster Recovery.

Dr. Indu Singh (right) is a Director of Deloitte Consulting and former Managing Director of the Bearing Point Corporation. He and his team have extensive experience in designing and implementing Smart Cities around the world.

Creating the Community of the 21st Century

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Broadband Economies: Creating the Community of the 21st Century is a book based on years of research by the Intelligent Community Forum into the best practices of Intelligent Communities in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. Filled with creative strategies and success stories, Broadband Economies explains:

• The powerful impact of leadership and local culture on a community's success
• Strategies for developing municipal broadband networks when the private sector fails to do the job
• Best practices for creating a "knowledge workforce" with the skills needed to create local prosperity
• How leading communities pursue digital inclusion to ensure that the benefits of technology reach all of their citizens and businesses
• How government and business, working together, can foster innovation that drives economic growth
• How broadband and information technology build social capital at the local level

From Broadband Economies

Geographic location and natural resources once determined a community's economic future. But today, we live in the Broadband Economy – a global economic engine powered by communications, whether it is fiber-optic cables stretching between continents, DSL connections in the home or mobile devices in our pockets. Now, it is the skills of the labor force, and the ability of business and government to adapt and innovate, that power prosperity.

The good news is that the Broadband Economy has also given communities powerful new tools to build local prosperity, inclusion and a sustainable future. Today, low-cost broadband and information technology are creating new kinds of businesses and entire new industries. They enable companies to be global exporters – including the export of skills, knowledge and culture which were never portable before. They can ensure that schools in remote regions and inner cities have access to the latest information tools. They link rural healthcare providers to leading medical centers and local law enforcement to national information grids. Individuals and local businesses can go global in search of low-cost, quality vendors, and Web-based tools can increase community involvement. By boosting the economic and social well-being of communities, broadband and IT can reduce the incentives for their young people to move away in search of opportunity and a better quality of life – but only if communities know how to put them to effective use.

Read the Reviews

"There are many who talk about tech-revolution, but it's a rare revolutionary who writes with an almost poetic sensibility and stays grounded in the real world. ICF has become the 'go-to' organization for anyone interested in the transformation of communities. Broadband Economies is much more than a manifesto and a handbook-for-action all rolled into one; it's a master-blueprint that lays out what we need for our communities."

— Gordon Feller, CEO, Urban Age Institute

"The work Cisco is bringing forward in the area of Broadband Government, of which Connected Urban Development is an important element, is modeled in part on ideas first introduced by the Intelligent Community Forum. I consider the work they do outstanding and world-class."

— Nicola Villa, Global Director, Connected Urban Development, Cisco Systems

2012’s best communities to live, work, grow and prosper in – and how they got that way

"This slim volume should be required reading for every local government, every community leader, every local college head or hospital manager and every enterprise (public or private) with half an ounce of interest in making a more prosperous place." - David Brunnen, Groupe Intellex

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With a foreword by Suvi Linden, Commissioner, UN Commission for Digital Development

In the 21st Century, the world is very much at your doorstep.

Because of accelerating advances in information and communications technology (ICT), the global economy is coming to dominate the life of the local community. It literally throws you into competition with people of similar talents and experience all around the planet. If your city or town cannot offer the right mix of skills, costs, quality infrastructure and access to markets, its economy will suffer, because ICT frees employers to shop the world for the best deal. And the “right mix” is not something fixed and immutable – it constantly evolves as poor nations become rich, tastes change and technology upends old assumptions.

But this storm cloud also has a silver lining. The same ICT revolution that threatens long-established ways of life also offers communities powerful new tools to build a better future. Communities large and small, in industrialized and developing nations, are finding ways to create prosperity, solve social challenges and strengthen their cultures on a foundation of ICT innovation. Rather than letting the global economy run roughshod, they are seizing their destinies with both hands and turning legacy into opportunity.

Inside the Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2012

Seizing Our Destiny tells the story of seven cities that did just that. They did it in large part by accelerating the pace of innovation in business, government and institutions to keep pace with a more innovative world. In the process, they offer lessons on how to innovate in governing, how to build political will for change, and how to understand and adapt creatively to the demands of the new century.

Read the Reviews

Building Intelligent Communities – Book Review
"It's reassuring as a Canadian to read about municipal leaders exhibiting wisdom, commitment and leadership," writes Paul Kennedy in his review of the ICF book, "Seizing our Destiny: 2012's best communities to live, work, grow and proper in – and how they got that way". The review is in the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of IT in Canada.

Seizing Our Destiny: 2012's best communities to live, work, grow and prosper in - Book Review
"So simple, it is brilliant. A small but insightful book." Reg Nordman of Rocket Builders, reviews the Intelligent Community Forum book and highlights the five key strategies cities need to implement.

The Sunday Breakfast Book Review - "Seizing Our Destiny"
David Brunnen of Groupe Intellex reviews the ICF book and writes, "The book... looks at seven cities that recognize that in order to thrive in the digital economy they must turn legacy into opportunity."

Made Possible by the Generous Support of...

• Bell
• BusinessOulu
• Enterprise Saint John
• FIABCI-Chinese Taiwan
• Herbert W. Hoover Foundation
• Institute for the Study of the Intelligent Community at Walsh University
• Lee Ming Construction Company
• Motorola Solutions
• Oulun Energia
• Riverside Public Utilities
• Riverside Unified School District
• The City of Stratford
• Vee TIME Corp
• Xerox

How innovative cities create job growth in an age of disruption

Selected by American City & County for the 2014 Leadership Book Club

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By the authors of Broadband Economies and Seizing Our Destiny

In their third book, ICF’s co-founders take on a central issue of our time: how to balance two essential demands of the Digital Age economy – innovation and employment – to create communities that thrive.

Brain Gain: How Innovative cities create job growth in an age of disruption is a survival manual for cities and regions on how to build economic prosperity and meet social challenges in an age of technological change.

Why has the global economy created a projected jobs gap of 75 million persons? Why are jobless recoveries now commonplace and why are middle-skilled jobs being erased? Brain Gain explains how innovation combined with Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is driving global economic change and has created a new force to be dealt with – the global connectivity of the broadband Internet.

Brain Gain probes the big issues of work and well-being, the innovation economy, offshoring, immigration and the future of big cities and small towns as they deal with the broadband economy. Innovation and advances in communications technology destroy jobs but also create new ones, cities must decide if they want to take actions that will provide a brain gain or a brain drain.

The book explores these crucial issues through the experiences of cities and regions that have faced challenging problems and found imaginative solutions. With the guidance of the Intelligent Community Forum, citizens in aspiring communities have applied leadership, vision, and ambition to create celebrated success stories in cities as diverse as Taichung, Taiwan, home to 2.6 million people, and Mitchell, South Dakota USA, home to only 15,000. In all, Brain Gain profiles 18 communities with the authors’ latest insights from more than 10 years of research into what makes the most Intelligent Communities on the planet.

Made Possible by the Generous Support of...

• Chunghwa Telecom
• Greater Columbus Arts Council
• The Columbus Region
• IDIPC (Taichung)
• Oulu & Business Oulu
• The Stratford Group
• Taoyuan Aerotropolis
• Vee TIME
• Waterfront Toronto