Robert Bell, Co-Founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, explains which midsize and small U.S. cities are the next best places to invest. Hosts: Carol Massar and Vincent Cignarella. Producer: Paul Brennan

Listen to the episode below:

I’m waiting at a stoplight. It turns green but the car ahead of mine sits still. Time passes. I gently tootle the horn. After another moment’s pause, the car ahead of me shoots guiltily ahead through the intersection. And I know exactly why.

Put down the phone.

It has gotten to the point in my little suburban town where the police have a digital sign running downtown. It says, “Get your head out of your apps.” Okay, it’s a little crude but this is New Jersey. Whaddaya want?

Really, put down the phone.

Danielle is CIO and Commissioner of the City of Chicago's Department of Innovation and Technology, where she is working to improve how residents interact with government by creating more responsive and accessible digital services.

Rob McCann is the founder of Clearcable Networks and the President of the Hamilton Technology Centre. He has been working with advanced broadband service deployments in mid-market and rural cable and telephone systems since 1998. He is responsible for building and maintaining technical, network, and application intelligence. Rob works closely with several carriers, cable systems, municipalities, and network service providers in Canada, the US, and the Caribbean providing them with the technology, integration, and business practices required to effectively operate voice, video, and data services in the changing broadband service provider industry.

According to an outfit called Grand View Research, the global market for Smart City solutions will grow by 18.4% per year through 2025, reaching US$2.57 trillion in annual sales. 

If you lead a city or county, those words should make you uneasy – because they mean that the beating heart of your community is somebody’s else’s low-hanging fruit. 

In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder speaks with Harout Chitilian, who served as a city councillor of Montreal when the city won the Intelligent Community of the Year Award in 2016.

The FutureScapes project is the brainchild of Rohit Talwar – a global futurist and founder of Fast Future Research.

You are in a race. A really big, important race. What are you hoping for? To win, of course. Second and third place are all very well, but there is no substitute for coming out on top. That is the mood in the room every year when the Intelligent Community Forum names its Intelligent Community of the Year. In that room are representatives of seven cities and counties, the Top7 Intelligent Communities of the Year: mayors, members of council, city managers, economic development, and IT leaders. They all want to win. In fact, they are already winners, having reached the Top7. But one of them has slightly outscored the others in our year-long evaluation. The moment comes when we reveal who that is – and it leaves in its wake one happy place and six very disappointed ones.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger was born in Amsterdam and came to Canada with his family when he was eight years old, settling in Hamilton.

Fred is currently serving his second four-year term as mayor. Previously he served as a member of Hamilton council, as chair of the Hamilton Port Authority, and as president and chief executive of the Canadian Urban Institute, where he was involved in the development of leading-edge, progressive urban policy.

A judge who toured Hamilton to determine whether it is the most "intelligent" community in the world said the city is an "astounding" place and its citizens recognize that.

"There's a real pride here," said Robert Bell, co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, a U.S.-based think tank founded 15 years ago that studies and promotes the world's best cities and how those models can be reproduced elsewhere.

"The number of people I've talked to who've said, 'I'm a lifelong Hamiltonian, and boy this is just the greatest place on the planet.'"