Strategic partnerships and smart solutions for sustainable urban planning and cities

Dr Hassan Radoine, full professor and managing director of Citinnov SA for Integrated Territorial Planning & Smart Cities at University Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P-Rabat), explores how strategic collaborations can transform sustainable urban planning and city design

As cities across the globe continue to expand rapidly, they encounter both great opportunities and complex challenges. By adopting smart city technologies and leveraging strategic partnerships, we can generate urban environments that are more efficient,  inclusive, resilient, and sustainable.

The case for smart cities

With the fastest urban growth globally, Africa’s cities are projected to be home to an additional 950m people by 2050.

This rapid urbanization presents many opportunities, including increased economic prospects, greater community development, and improved access to services and facilities. However, urbanization can also prompt several challenges. The process can strain infrastructure, create resource management issues in areas such as water, energy, and food, and lead to environmental degradation due to high energy consumption, increased air pollution, and the continuous loss of green spaces.

Sustainable urban planning

Sustainable urban planning can proactively address these impacts by involving green infrastructure, developing energy-efficient constructions, planning for multimodal transport, and implementing water management initiatives.

Developing smart cities – urban areas that utilize technology and data to improve conditions for both people and the planet – can ensure more effective city management and smart data-driven decision-making. In addition, by embedding sustainability as a core value, smart cities can create a balance between economic growth, quality of life, and natural resource preservation.

Smart solutions

For many decades, building cities and establishing infrastructure has been predominantly a massive resource sink.

Whether it is material supplies, financial resources, or time, construction is deeply entrenched in ways of working that are labor-intensive, time-consuming, and inefficient. However, the advent of smart technologies and methods like robotics and Design for  Manufacturing & Assembly (DfMA) brings construction to a new frontier of efficiency and measured performance.

Recently, many innovations in the manufacturing industry have seeped into the construction industry, with traditional players in the construction sector being eclipsed by innovative companies that adopt Modern Methods of Construction (MMC). For instance, Toyota, the global leader in car manufacturing, also builds modular homes with a 60-year warranty, exceeding the typical regulatory 50-year service life intended for residential buildings.

Furthermore, IKEA and Skanska have partnered to create BoKlok, a joint venture delivering prefabricated modular homes. This initiative streamlines construction, reduces waste and emissions and cuts build time.

Partnering for progress

Although technology is a powerful tool for progress, it is not the only factor that needs to be considered. Strategic collaborations are essential to successfully transform cities.

Partnerships can support these efforts by sharing resources, combining diverse areas of expertise, and offering a wider range of innovative solutions. These collaborations often involve various stakeholders, including governments, NGOs, communities, the private sector, and research institutions.

In 2023, UM6P partnered with the Research Institute for Solar Energy & New Energies and the Korean International Cooperation Agency to create the Green & Smart Building Park (GSBP) in Ben Guérir.

The GSBP is a pioneering platform dedicated to the development of environmentally conscious buildings that are powered by renewable energy. The Park has been recognized as a successful partnership between research institutions and organizations that uses smart solutions to enhance renewable energy usage and digitization in buildings. Read the article

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