The Role of Smart City Initiatives in Driving Partnerships: A Case Study of the Smart Social Spaces Project, Sydney Australia

This chapter explores the potential of smart cities initiatives as a driver of partnership formation. It presents lessons learnt from the collaboration between the Faculty of Built Environment at the University of New South Wales Sydney, Street Furniture Australia, and Georges River Council, New South Wales, as partners in a Commonwealth funded smart cities grant awarded in 2017. The research pilots how environmental sensors can inform the potential to improve the amenity and use of public open spaces and contribute to the asset management system of small-scale street furniture. This project provides a basis from which to explore the opportunities and challenges of collaboration across three domains (academia, industry, government) while conducting a smart cities project. We demonstrate how mutually collaborative efforts can better harness real-time data to identify and address citizens’ needs, interests and demands, for public space in parks and plazas, in addition to assisting council with developing an efficient asset management system. These critical insights (concerning processes, outputs and outcomes) can be applied to develop an effective model of research, practice, and local government collaboration that stimulates urban innovations to address complex problems of twenty-first century cities.