Authors: Tel Aviv-Yafo
Date of publish: June 2016
Why did we select this snapshot?
Tel Aviv-Yafo is a city that never sleeps, and consequently the challenges it constantly faces neither do so. Being a reference city in a wide variety of aspects, it is worth exploring the approaches that the city has undertaken to solve such challenges and the practices that have been already put in place to offer to its residents and visitors the best experience possible.
Key findings:
The official report published by the city provides an overview on how the city tries to act as an arena where "residents, business, third sector organizations and the Municipality itself can collaborate, while making use of cutting-edge technologies that enable learning, creativity and sharing to achieve social and economic prosperity". To succeed in being a truly smart city, Tel Aviv-Yafo takes as four main visions as its final objective to achieve: for the city to be is for all its residents; to have a resident-oriented government; to have an appealing urban environment; to be a financial and cultural center.
Engagement projects have been put in place in order to increase (and strengthen) citizen's engagement with the city and all the services it can provide them. Some examples include: provision of online municipal services, open archive or open data.
The Municipality has 11 eco-related programs and initiatives raging from community gardens, municipal recycling, green construction to conserving water. Additionally, they do have smart food policies (regarding production and consumption of sustainable food).
Community and entrepreneurship is encouraged through affordable municipal housing, assistance in establishing communities, open entrepreneurship centers and Municipality-run youth and young adult centers.
Traffic and parking is also tackled in the initiative, by the creation of bike paths (to date, more than 100km) and Tel-o-fun, Tel Aviv's bike rental project, which is composed of 1,500 bikes that have been rented more than 3 million times so far. Furthermore, Tel Aviv also counts with smart parking services and the payment of certain parking areas through the cell phone.
Technology is heavily used on their "Rediness" pillar, as the Municipality has over 200 cameras installed in public spaces to increase the sense of security amongst its residents
The paper provides a detailed list of indicators composing each of the four pillars (a city for all residents; resident-oriented government; an appealing urban environment and a financial and cultural center".
Retrieved from: Tel Aviv government
https://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/en/WorkAndStudy/Documents/SMART%20CITY%20TEL%20AVIV.pdf
