The pandemic revealed the essential role of broadband today. It also exposed as never before the dire consequences of the digital divide and the explosive impact of social media in spreading misinformation, fear and outrage. Panelists discuss what the pandemic has taught them about making broadband access more equitable and managing its downsides.

The East Central Region of Minnesota encompasses 5 counties: Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs and Pine. Like many regions of the midwestern United States, the East Central Minnesota has long had a primarily agricultural and mining-focused economy, and though the area’s iron deposits are now depleted, dairy, corn and soybean farms still dot the region, as well as paper production companies due to the region’s many softwood forests, including the Chippewa National Forest. East Central Minnesota has more recently focused on a growing tourism industry to support the area during economic transition, as the region is home to many beautiful lakes.

When local mining and, to a lesser extent, agricultural industries began to fail, the East Central Region shifted toward a service-based economy like many of its fellow U.S. communities, but the region aims to turn hardship into an opportunity for growth and attracting new industries. Beginning in 2001, the 5 counties of the region formed the Northern Technology Initiative, which is today known as GPS 45:93, the longitude and latitude coordinates of where they all meet. GPS 45:93 includes city and council economic development managers, private companies and public entities, community and regional organizations, workforce and tribal partners, all working together to improve East Central Minnesota’s ability to compete in a modern economy and attract new businesses and infrastructure investments.

Connecting Residents with the Tools to Succeed

Like many regions with major rural stretches, East Central Minnesota has struggled to bring reliable broadband access to its residents. Many citizens in the region have little access to computers or internet services, leaving them unable to participate in an increasing online economy.

While the county governments work to find the best solution for connectivity, the East Central Regional Library (ECRL) system has worked to the fill the gaps in access for all citizens. The system consists of 14 library branches and 8 outreach sites across the 5 counties as well as neighboring Aitkin. The ECRL provides access to computers, broadband internet service including free wireless access within the library branches and technical support and assistance, as well as intermittent technology training classes. The library system’s website (ecrlib.org) connects library card users to research databases such as EBSCO and Gale, online learning classes including Universal Class, Hoonuit and Mango languages and a large collection of eBooks, eAudiobooks and eMagazines containing a wealth of information and research materials. Library staff provide in-person assistance for those looking to use the ECRL’s wealth of services and also provide chat reference services 24/7 through the statewide AskMN service. Just over 50% of the region’s citizens have active library cards, and many of the library resources are accessible even without one, leading to nearly 500,000 library visits across the region in 2018 alone.

Training the Next Generation Workforce

To support a changing economy, East Central Minnesota needs workers trained in a wide variety of new and traditional skills. GPS 45:93’s workforce committee established the Innovative Approaches to Career Readiness program in 2017 and held its first event in May 2018. The event featured speakers from local high schools and academies with innovative programs already established to assist students in identifying career paths available to them in the region and providing them with appropriate advice and training. Innovative Approaches to Career Readiness aimed to bring representatives from regional high schools and local businesses together in collaboration so that high schools could create new programs to help teach the skills local businesses particularly need to succeed. GPS 45:93 followed up the May event with a tour of Cardinal Manufacturing at the Eleva-Strom High School, a student-run manufacturing company.

The region held the second Innovative Approaches to Career Readiness event in May of 2019, showcasing a panel of new schools and their students sharing programs and projects. The second event highlighted students from a culinary program, a nursing assistant program, multiple apprenticeships and CEO programs. Presenters also shared region labor market and training information, and GPS 45:93 announced the availability of grant funding for schools to start new career initiatives and projects in the future, with 3 schools receiving such grants in the same year they were announced.

Collaborating to Reduce Regional Waste

The 5 counties of East Central Minnesota joined together to form the East Central Solid Waste Commission in 1988 with the goal of establishing solid-waste disposal and recycling programs for the region. Since its founding, the commission has created joint recycling centers, landfills and compost disposal areas, as well as providing collection services for construction and demolition debris and methane for fuel production. It has passed resolutions making on-site disposal of garbage illegal, reducing many of the negative side effects of solid waste disposal throughout the region. With its infrastructure firmly in place, the commission now focuses on education and institutional awareness, providing training in best practices for disposal to promote public health and cost effectiveness. The East Central Solid Waste Commission also serves as the region’s manager for sustainability program grant applications and opportunities such as Green Corps. Residential recycling in the East Central Region has increased by 30% since instituting these training and education programs, with 88% of local businesses recycling paper, 60% recycling plastics, 47% recycling metal and glass and 38% recycling special items such as electronics and batteries. Providing convenient means to recycle such specialized items is the East Central Solid Waste Commission’s next goal for the future.

In times of increasing economic uncertainty, the East Central Region of Minnesota has focused first and foremost on itself as a community, bolstering opportunities for residents to meet whatever the future holds in store.

Population: 165,989

Website: gps4593.com

Smart21 2022

Elefsina, known to the Greeks as Eleusis, is a suburb of Athens, home to 30,000 people. It is a major industrial area, where most crude oil in Greece is imported and refined. Generations of unfettered industrial development has left a legacy of abandoned factories. But the European Union also named it one of three 2021 Cultural Capitals of Europe because of its rich history as a religious center and its establishment in 1975 of the Aeschylia, one of the most important theater festivals in Greece. It honors the tragic poet Aeschylus, who was born in the city.

With carbon-reduction goals crimping the growth potential of oil, the city is turning to the ICF Method to expand its economy in new directions.

A New Generation of Innovators

An early-stage adopter of the Method, Elefsina is focused on building the key components of a skilled workforce and innovation ecosystem. It is adequately served by three broadband providers, though the costs of connectivity remain high. In 2021, the city put that bandwidth to work with the launch of an Innovation Hackathon focused on smart city solutions, sustainability and agri-food and agri-tourism. Fourteen middle and high schools created teams and developed business ideas in a competition judged by university professors and entrepreneurs. As part of the program, students studied business creation and planning, business models, how to define and pitch a value proposition and basics of finance and investment.

In 2021, Elefsina hosted the third annual edition of StartupNow Forum, the largest innovation, entrepreneurship and technology conference in Greece. The conference features a Startup Innovation Competition, which evaluates the best startups in the country. The October event marked Elefsina’s “coming out” as a contender in technology innovation.

Opening the Gate

In the same year, Elefsina used national government funding to launch a Business Education and Business Gate program. The content being developed includes financial evaluation tools and briefings on national and European Union sources of funding. The Business Gate is a matchmaking program that connects local companies with each other and businesses from neighboring municipalities.

This Athens suburbs has outlined a roadmap that, with vigorous execution, can build a more diverse and innovative economy. Elefsina seeks nothing less than a local economy that, leveraging its proximity to the nation’s capital, can also stand proudly on its own.

Population: 30,000

Website: elefsina.gr/

Smart21 2022

Photo by Davide Mauro. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Communities from nine nations, including Greece and New Zealand, named this year

(24 February 2022 – Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada & New York, New York, USA) – At the conclusion of a virtual conference co-hosted by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) and Economic Development Winnipeg, ICF today named the world’s Smart21 Communities of 2022. The selection of the annual Smart21 Communities of the Year marks the beginning of the annual nine-month process which will conclude when ICF names the 2022 Intelligent Community of the Year in October at the ICF Summit. Winnipeg was the 2021 Intelligent Community of the Year.

Each of the cities, towns, or regions that appear in the Smart21 have applied the six principles of the ICF Method to begin building inclusive economic prosperity, social health and cultural richness, which together make a community strong and resilient. Most have been working on their programs for several years.

“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” -Voltaire

The violence you saw on January 6 in the USA was not accidental. The violence was the point! Donald Trump used violence like a mobster to work over the American electorate and to let them know that next time it would be worse if they didn’t play along. Time will tell if the most robust of democratic nations and its oldest living republic will manage through the political plague. So far, the chisel to cut the stone for a new monument to civil unity seems dulled.

Political violence has been a tactic of every disgruntled, bullying ideologue or insurgency for as long as we have organized ourselves into communities. We saw it recently in Afghanistan. Despite the effort of people like ICF Visionary of the Year Amirzai Sangin to bring the nation into a new era through broadband communications, civil progress was thwarted.

Announcement to be part of a half-day conference, “From Conflict to Community” using the ICF Method

(New York, NY, USA and Winnipeg, MB, Canada – February 3, 2022) – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) in partnership with Economic Development Winnipeg will co-host a February 24 online conference, From Conflict to Community: How Cities and Regions Can Restore a Culture of Human Connection. The half-day virtual conference also features the announcement of the ICF Smart21 Communities of 2022.

The announcement of the Smart21 Communities starts the 9-month journey towards naming the 2022 Intelligent Community of the Year, the community that best exemplifies the success factors of the ICF Method. Seven of these 21 communities will go on to be named Top7 Intelligent Communities of the Year in June, and one will be named Intelligent Community of the Year at the ICF Summit in October. The City of Winnipeg was the 2021 Intelligent Community of the Year.

Townsville enjoys a seaside location with more than 300 days of sunshine per year and is often considered the capital of Northern Queensland, Australia. But it is no stranger to crisis, from the loss of key industries to natural disaster. It is pushing back with a relentless focus on innovation. The city has been and still is an industrial center, as it is home to one of the world’s largest zinc refineries, a major nickel refinery and other industries. Townsville is currently expanding its port as part of a $30 million operation to allow for passage of larger cargo and passenger ships. The city also contains a number of natural attractions, including “The Strand,” a long beach and garden strip, the Riverway parkland on the banks of the Ross River, a large tropical aquarium and museum, among others. Townsville aims to build on these strengths with further innovation and engagement with its own people and many visitors.

Connecting Townsville

Northern Australia’s physical distance from major markets has made access to affordable, high-speed internet access historically difficult. This has led to newer businesses, particularly in digital services, lagging substantially behind traditional industries in the region. The city aims to change that with the Townsville Connect program. The program will bring together multiple commercial partners in the region to establish a 10G network between major productive precincts of the city, such as the Health and Knowledge Precinct, as well as tertiary providers, key stakeholders and much of the small-to-medium business community. This first step will dramatically improve connectivity for key areas of the city, attracting new businesses to the region and providing a successful model to further expand broadband access in the future. As of 2020, the Townsville Connect program is midway through the EOI process for commercial partners.

Supporting the Community through Smart Precinct North Queensland

Beginning in 2019, Townsville has partnered with a variety of regional stakeholders, including James Cook University, Burdekin, Hinchinbrook, the Charters Towers and Palm Island Councils, Cubic, Safety Culture, TAFE and local entrepreneurs, to create Smart Precinct North Queensland (SPNQ). SPNQ has established itself as an innovation hub, the center of an innovation ecosystem made up of high-growth companies in North Queensland. Bringing together these stakeholders in one ecosystem will provide much-needed support for local start-ups and established businesses, as they work together to attract investments and build new technologies. Since its launch in 2019, SPNQ has deployed a new incubator program for the region, run eight community events, provided direct support to 25 local businesses and launched a hardware accelerator with a smart manufacturing initiative now in the works.

Building for the Future with the Townsville City Deal

The Townsville City Deal is a 15-year commitment between the national government of Australia, the state government of Queensland and the Townsville City Council. The City Deal lays out a plan for investment in Townsville through which government works with the private sector to improve infrastructure, attract investment, create new jobs and foster growth throughout the community. Thus far, the City Deal has led to a revitalization of the Waterfront Priority Development Area, growth of the Townsville Port and many new investments in the State Development Area. These infrastructure improvements have led to greater export and freight efficiency, facilitating business and service industry developments and making it easier to connect people and places throughout the region.

As of June 2020, the City Deal has led to the creation of the Townsville Smart City Strategy, the new North Queensland Country Bank Stadium and the Haughton Pipeline Duplication Project. It has also attracted significant investments for projects to develop Townsville’s global education and training programs with support from the Queensland Education and Training Partnership Fund.

Creating Water Sensitive Townsville

Beginning in 2015, the Townsville City Council worked with the Cooperative Research Center for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC) to develop a Water Sensitive Vision and Transition Strategy for the city. As a dry tropical city, Townsville requires complex water management to maintain a healthy ecosystem and handle its dramatic natural water cycles. The project has thus far seen more than 7,000 smart water meters installed across the community, with each meter delivering data to a publicly accessible web portal. This allows the government, community members and businesses to identify leaks and other sources of high usage, providing ways to easily reduce water use.

Townsville’s focus on innovation, conservation and engagement with the community on both fronts has the city poised to lead North Queensland into a brighter and more connected future.

Population: 195,032

Website: www.townsville.qld.au.gov

Smart21 2021 | 2022 | 2023

Top7 2021

Photo by Leonhard Fortier

Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, is a business and technology center in its own right. The city grew into Canada’s sixth-most-populous municipality in the second half of the 20th century as it attracted a large multicultural population around its thriving central business district. Mississauga is home to Canada’s busiest airport as well as many of the nation’s major corporations. Outside the business district, the city also has an impressive arts community and is home to many major festivals, including Carassauga, the second-largest culture festival in Canada. Many of these festivals take place in Mississauga’s Celebration Square, the city’s recently restructured and vibrant Civic Square. Mississauga began as a collection of many hamlets and villages, each with their own distinct cultural offerings, that have led to the city’s rich and diverse heritage and cultural offerings today.

Ensuring Access Across Mississauga

Mississauga’s impressive business district has made it an attractive market for ISPs. The city encourages continued expansion with a streamlined online system for the trenching and installation permits that ISPs need. Each step in the application process is automated, with the appropriate agencies notified whenever their approval is needed and the ISPs kept in the loop at each step. Mississauga has processed more than 17,000 applications in the past four years. This streamlined process keeps competition strong among ISPs in the area, driving down prices and improving connectivity offerings for the city as a whole.

Leveraging Connectivity to Promote Open Government

Mississauga has leveraged its competitive connectivity to help citizens, from a cloud-based system that makes connecting with government easy to a Digital Main Street program that helps small businesses go online. Established in 2015, Mississauga’s Open Data Policy requires the city to publish much of its collected digital data in an open data portal for easy citizen access. This allows citizens to be better informed about how their government functions and what projects are being given the most attention and funding. To ensure that citizens and businesses make the best use of this data, which now includes 230 total datasets with many more planned, the city provides training in the use of its data portal as well.

In October 2020, Mississauga’s annual hackathon took the form of a Smart City Open Data Challenge. The month-long virtual event saw 9 teams of high-school-aged students – assisted by industry presentations and other guidance from 11 event partners – analyze and develop new strategies for the city’s social and economic resilience, particularly during COVID-19. All insights and strategies were based on open data provided by the city with each student team submission collected and displayed in a Smart City Open Data Showcase available to the whole community. The Smart City Open Data Challenge also provided an opportunity for student participants to build their resumes and network with peers in the larger community.

Closing the Digital Divide

To help citizens take better advantage of improved connectivity, Mississauga instituted a Laptop Lending Program through its public library beginning in 2017. The program includes 100 wireless hotspots, more than 30 Chromebooks and over 100 laptops to be provided to community members without easy computer access for work and school. Patrons with a valid library card can check out the wireless hotspots as needed. Chromebooks are currently only available for use in-library, but the city plans to allow external lending beginning in 2021. The collection of 100 laptops was provided to local school boards to be lent out to children who don’t have access to computers at home for their school work. Laptop lending in schools is currently part of a pilot project with further expansions planned in the future.

Through these and other efforts, Mississauga aims to maintain its strong position in a high-tech future.

Population: 801,887

Website: www.mississauga.ca

Smart21 2021

Top7 2021

Photo by WOMeos

Maple Ridge is one of British Columbia’s oldest cities, having been incorporated in 1874. The city has a largely rural and agrarian history with forestry still serving as Maple Ridge’s largest private-sector employer. Maple Ridge’s beautiful forests, as well as Ridge Film Studios in the city’s downtown, have served to make it a popular location for feature films and television series as well. The city has focused on its cultural beauty as its population swells, hosting a wide variety of annual festivals and parades, and one of the largest Remembrance Day celebrations on the Lower Mainland. In the 21st century, Maple Ridge is looking ever more toward the future, planning redevelopments, commercial and industrial expansions and more with its people to guide it every step of the way.

Connecting a Widely Spread and Growing Population

To connect its growing population, the city has built a municipally owned data center to meet its own needs and provide a meet-me point to attract internet providers. Maple Ridge is also working with its partners on the project to create a revenue sharing model for scalable services to further facilitate internet providers sharing space in the facility. The city is simultaneously following a “dig once” strategy by building out conduit in areas under development or repair to encourage more private-sector investment. As of 2020, the city has connected 36% of its facilities to its fiber network with more to come.

Training the Future Workforce

To ensure the best possible education for its students, the city has persuaded the BC Institute of Technology (BCIT) to open satellite campuses at its high schools. Through this program, students gain technical skills and real-world experiences, as BCIT leverages its network of alumni and partners to learn more about which skills are most valued by local employers. Rapid growth has resulted in shortages of many of these skills, so BCIT is also working with two of Maple Ridge’s high schools to run trade skills development courses for 11th and 12th grade students. This program provides the students with apprenticeship opportunities, allowing them to transition into highly skilled jobs upon graduation.

The city also persuaded BCIT to launch a maritime technology program at the Justice Institute in Maple Ridge. Beyond the high school level, BCIT offers practical career credentials for post-secondary students based on input from government and local industries. These collaborations with BCIT have already produced at 300% increase in job creation since 2019.

Improving Quality of Life Through Community Engagement

Quality of life is a major focus for the City of Maple Ridge. To ensure that it pursues improvements that will mean the most to its people, the city has sought feedback and ideas from local businesses and other key stakeholders as well as the community at large through a series of programs.

In 2019, Maple Ridge held its first Town Centre Business Walk based on collaboration between the Business Improvement Association (BIA) and the City and Chamber of Commerce. Business Walks are annual events designed to measure the economic climate of a community by walking around business neighborhoods and gathering data through surveys of 5-10 questions. The Maple Ridge Economic Development Department will use the data gathered to revise and update its retention and expansion plans accordingly. The 2019 Town Centre Business Walk was a rousing success with local businesses seeing their needs met and voices heard. Maple Ridge plans to continue the practice going forward, with some expected adaptations needed for the 2020 Business Walk, due to the pandemic.

To make Maple Ridge a great place to both live and age in, the city has undertaken a mapping program to help seniors navigate more easily. The program mapped walking, transit and driving routes across the entire city, noting details like accessible parking and amenity locations and roughly how long it will take to walk to a destination. The Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows Katzie Seniors Network designed the program and sought input from hundreds of seniors throughout the community as to what would be most valuable for their daily lives. To ensure that the program sees as much use as possible, the city library and the Seniors Activity Centre provide training in its use. Maple Ridge hopes to expand the program beyond just the city in the future by working with other interested communities.

Maple Ridge has even bigger plans in store as well. As its population rapidly grows, the city aims to redevelop its Town Centre as a business and cultural core, focusing on its historic points of interest and unique character. To ensure this redevelopment aligns with the public’s needs, Maple Ridge established the Town Centre Area Plan (TCAP) to guide the project. The city aims to explore how the Town Centre can better support businesses, provide an inclusive environment for all citizens and grow as an attractive destination for visitors. Maple Ridge city has held a number of engagement events for the TCAP, including an urban design visioning event, “A Scoop for Your Scoop” event in Memorial Peace Park that included free ice cream in exchange for passing visitors’ input and a Walkshop, in which participants wander the Town Centre documenting their impressions and ideas. In 2020 alone, more than 750 people have provided input and ideas for the TCAP.

Population is just one of many growth areas in Maple Ridge today as the city builds new infrastructure and new connections between its government, businesses and people.

Population: 91,222

Website: www.mapleridge.ca

Smart21 2021 | 2022

Photo by Juraj Tatár

The Township of Langley has a long and storied history that includes millennia of occupation by the Katzie and Kwantlen First Nations before European settlers built Fort Langley – often called “the birthplace of British Columbia” – in the early 1800s. The rural township was incorporated in 1873 and continued to grow and flourish as transportation expanded in Canada, from the British Columbia Electric Railway to the Fraser Highway. Langley experienced its greatest yet economic boom post World War II when the Trans-Canada Highway brought convenience and new vigor to its suburbs. In the modern era, the township has put its energies into engaging all sectors of the community in progress, having developed a heritage center to open dialogue with the First Nations while also looking to the community at large for guidance on policy decisions and more.

Increasing Broadband Access through Competition

In 2016, the Township of Langley established a Municipal Access Agreement (MAA) to allow uniform, equal and simplified access for third-party ISPs to the town’s infrastructure. The agreement is designed to promote competition between telcos by removing barriers to entry to ensure lower prices and the best possible service in the area. Standardizing the application process also allows ISPs to focus on adopting recent technologies and exploring new methods for delivery and service improvement, rather than constantly struggling with red tape. The MAA has already shown results, with Shaw Communications announcing the availability of its Fiber+ offering in Langley and Telus incrementally deploying its PureFibre offering as well. All providers in the area are also working to deploy 5G cellular infrastructure across the municipality.

Supporting the Current and Future Workforce

Working closely with the provincial and federal Canadian governments, the Township of Langley has established a WorkBC Centre within the community to assist people seeking employment. WorkBC provides up to 35 hours of training through local public and private colleges free of charge. It also offers services to employers in the form of online job postings and promotion of them via social media, applicant pre-screenings, tailored mini-hiring fairs and multi-employer job fairs, internship opportunities and employee training grants. To ensure that WorkBC Langley is meeting both job seekers’ and employers’ needs in the community, the Langley School District regularly meets with WorkBC representatives to share information on programs and collaborate on initiatives. The Township has also provided data to WorkBC from its job posting data analysis software to allow WorkBC to better understand local trends and skill needs. In 2019 alone, WorkBC Langley helped more than 1,500 people.

The Township also provides many services to students through the Langley School District’s Career Education Department. The department offers career exploration workshops and tours throughout the school year for secondary and middle schools, allowing students to meet professionals working various fields and ask questions about their experiences. The Career Education Department has developed the WAVE Program, which places students in grades 10-12 in volunteer positions to earn future job experience. A large number of local employers participate in the program, including Fraser Health, Langley City Fire Department, Langley Memorial Hospital, Langley Township Fire Department and Langley School District Summer Maintenance. The department also offers Youth TRAIN in Trades programs, in which students participate in technical trades apprenticeships in exchange for credits towards graduation and post-secondary credits.

Engaging the Community in Policy through Open Data

Langley is one of very few municipalities in British Columbia to offer all of its online services through a single personalized login, leading to much greater accessibility for citizens. The Township continuously adds new functionality to its online tools to help the population interact with government in meaningful ways, including allowing citizens to submit tickets to fix potholes and other infrastructure issues and to track progress on those tickets. The Township government also offers an Open Data Portal to make as much information available as possible to community members. Users can login to view data on development activity, property crimes, business licenses, roads and truck routes, parks and trails and more. The Township has recently acquired additional data visualization tools through LocalIntell, enabling businesses to analyze demographics and other economic indicators to improve decision making.

In addition to facilitating eGovernment engagement, the Township of Langley has also focused on social engagement through a Public Engagement Charter, established in 2016. The Charter provides a high-level policy framework for the Township to follow to involve citizens in community planning and development. Following guidance from the Charter, Langley launched the Brookswood-Fernridge Community Plan to update the one previously set out in 1987. Through multiple stages of community consultation, workshops, dialogue sessions, open houses and public hearings, residents and stakeholders gathered to shape the new Plan based on their collective understanding of community needs.

In 2018, Canada’s federal Cannabis Act and Cannabis Regulations came into effect, legalizing recreational cannabis. Before allowing retail sales in Langley, the Township Council held a series of open houses to present the public with information on storefront cannabis retail, government roles and responsibilities and an opportunity to ask direct questions and clarify information. Through this engagement strategy, the Township was able to develop its Cannabis Retail Sales Policy with a focus on both responsibility and profitability for the community as a whole.

Adopting a Sustainability Charter

In 2008, the Township of Langley adopted a Sustainability Charter to shape initiatives for a greener future. Since the Charter’s adoption, the Township has created a number of successful programs, including the Green Building Rebates program, which provides financial incentives for builders and homeowners to implement green design principles and appliances. The Empower Me program is an award-winning energy conservation and behavior change program offered in many languages that helps community members to better understand their energy bills and the choices available to them, allowing them to save money and energy while increasing comfort. Langley has also established tree-planting requirements for all public areas and a bylaw that requires private developments to plant roughly 30 trees per acre.

In tandem with these programs, the Township has implemented green policies for municipal assets and infrastructure. Langley’s Main Hall has received an international mark of excellence for being the first municipal hall in Canada to be certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) CI Silver. The Township has built a public-transit fleet of multiple electric vehicles as well as many hybrids with GPS tracking systems to support route planning and fuel management. Many of the Township’s facilities have been upgraded from standard gas boilers to 98% efficiency-condensing boilers, and its Municipal Hall boiler system also incorporates solar panels.

Through these programs and more, the Township of Langley has engaged its people from all walks of life in creating a stronger, more prosperous future together.

Population: 135,000

Website: www.tol.ca

Smart21 2021 | 2022

Top7 2021

Photo by Colin Stepney