Smart Community?

A slogan currently thrown around with gay abandon, the key indicators of which are often not very well understood.

To Armidale Dumaresq Council (ADC) it means being the fourth Australian city, (first outside of Tasmania) to be connected to NBN. 

But that was five years ago and have we made use of this significant advantage given to us and moved forward? Have we taken our heads out of the clouds and can we see where we are going?

Apparently we have according to the ADC mayor, who has just returned from the Smart Cities Australian Summit in Melbourne and reported on the success of the Summit: “There are lessons to be learnt” from San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, London, Rio De Janeiro and Singapore experiences. 

Some of the experiences he outlined were the use of drones to deliver pizzas, driverless cars, construction of pressurized tubes for transporting passengers at 1300km/h that cost less than the construction of a new rail line and could get passengers from Armidale to Sydney in half an hour!

Cr Beyersdorf reported that some of the initiatives were “mutatis mutantis”(mutandis?) to regional cities such as Armidale – e.g. those used in making San Francisco more liveable reminded him of our efforts to make the Armidale Mall more vibrant!

His report concludes that “Des- pite its very small size, compared with San Francisco or Singapore, Armidale is certainly up there with the rest of them in innovativeness and implementation of smart technologies.” 

So why were we not declared as the World’s Smartest City at the Global Intelligent Community Forum when we were told we were in the running for it? 

We didn’t even get a mention in the “top 7”.

Why do we see news reports which say “We are here, but where are you?”

Why does the Digital Futures Report commissioned by Regional Australian Institute rank Armidale as 110/563 Local Government Areas in Australia for measures of technology readiness?

Why, as reported by the Bureau of Statistics, have only 9 people moved to Armidale in the last year?

ADC has a $65,000/year membership to Evocities, $2000 membership to Armidale Dumaresq Foundation for Regional Development, Plans for Economic Development and Tourism commission- ed by AEC group of consultants, The Armidale Implementation Group, and a project manager for Economic Development, Tourism and Marketing.

 So why is Armidale being left behind?

The Regional Australian Institute, states: “Communications technologies play an increasingly important role in enabling regional Australia to participate in the digital economy”.

So what was the reason for what can only be described as a deliberate attempt by the ADC general manager and ADC mayor to try and prevent council discussion at Tuesday night’s council meeting on the issue of addressing the digital divide for Armidale Dumaresq rural residents, Black Spot Round 2 Proposals?

And what was the motive behind Cr O’Donoghue’s insistence that it be recorded in the minutes that in no way would he agree to any support from council for the Black Spot program?

Could it be that a “smart” city needs smart leadership? 

Fortunately there was one smart councillor at the meeting – Cr O’Connor, who does actually understand the concept of a smart city and, as a result of her persistence, the council is now bound by its resolution to offer some support for helping to address the very real needs of our rural community to participate in the digital economy.

 For this the rural community thanks her.

When will our civic leaders understand we are not like San Francisco or Singapore or Amsterdam, have no wish to be so, and that our needs for being part of the digital economy and dealing with the “digital disturbance” are totally different. 

We need to embrace digital technology to create our own vibrant community, both urban and rural.