City Age has been convening thought leaders in the “Smart City” sphere for several years now in major metro areas across the world from LA to Hong Kong to Kansas City to Toronto. Their first foray in San Francisco had its own special flavor, emphasizing climate resiliency, transportation, and new development models.

Of particular interest was a panel on City Building which featured the Warm Springs story, and how the City of Fremont has leveraged its real estate portfolio to drive more beneficial partnerships for public infrastructure ranging from complete streets to school facilities. Fremont’s Chief Innovation Officer Kelly Kline shared Fremont’s impressive stats related to affordable housing goals and its unique approach to creating an innovation ecosystem based on Advanced Industries. Other panelists from the City of San Francisco, SPUR, and mixed-use developer Grosvenor emphasized the importance of creative approaches to drive density near transit hubs.

Throughout the conference there were a number of projections and analytics that will certainly shape Fremont’s approach to city building. Here are some interesting takeaways.

Demographic trends will change our city partners and priorities. Emerging Global Markets are increasingly important, and will comprise 45 percent of the Fortune Global 500 by 2025. Meanwhile, the global population is aging, especially the 60+ age group.

1. Demographic trends will change our city partners and priorities. Emerging global markets are increasingly important, and will comprise 45 percent of the Fortune Global 500 by 2025. Meanwhile, the global population is aging, especially the 60+ age group.

2. Regionalism is an imperative. In the nine-county Bay Area region, there are over 100 cities, and many of the problems — such as transportation and affordable housing — can’t be solved at the local level alone.

3. City infrastructure is in terrible shape, and Public Private Partnerships are critical to addressing overwhelming needs. The Internet of Things (IoT) also offers the ability for city infrastructure to be smarter through sensor technology.

4. Transit solutions are more complicated than ever given how much the environment has changed. Technology can help, but it still requires grafting onto existing aging systems.

5. City resiliency, with water and energy storage and distribution as a focus, is a new frontier for regional partnerships.  

Best of all, the conference gave us the opportunity to collect best practices and inspirational stories from cities near and far. We learned about Hong Kong's thriving startup scene, the Toronto/Waterloo innovation corridor, San Francisco’s Entrepreneur in Residence program, and San Jose’s Office of External Partnerships and default position of open data. Jeff Morales, CEO of California High Speed Rail, gave a progress report and shared the economic benefits of the project, particularly for small businesses. Bay Area transportation leaders, including car-sharing company LYFT, discussed the projected impacts of autonomous vehicles on our broader transit system.

Underlying all of these topics and discussions was an implicit buy-in to the paradigm expressed by author James Surowiecki in his 2004 book, “Wisdom of Crowds.” The answers to the significant challenges and opportunities ahead lie in cross sector partnerships and embracing new service delivery models.