SMART CITY HAWAI‘I: TRANSFORMING O‘AHU’S CITIES THROUGH SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS AND URBAN INFORMATICS

Abstract

Rising to prominence in the early 2000’s, smart cities were imagined as the new urban standard built from green design and urban informatics. Since their conception, smart city research has developed tremendously, including the addition of frameworks to classify the types of smart cities that have since emerged and are most prominent, based on the emphasized technologies in smart city plans across the globe. Although Hawai‘i has not formally published a smart city plan, the ongoing developments most prominently seen on O‘ahu, shows initial signs of smart technology adoption and a concern for transitioning towards a more sustainable form of living, which is why the discussion on smart, sustainable developments must happen now. Provided recent developments, an environmental scan of O‘ahu and Hawai‘i at large was performed to assess the unidentified challenges and opportunities for smart development. Land use laws, the social and cultural landscape, environmental concerns, technological infrastructure, and the potential impacts of an ongoing public health emergency were all reviewed, revealing that while Hawai’i has already taken some initiatives to develop O‘ahu with smart, sustainable technologies, there as barriers that could potentially threaten timely, well-planned development backed by the public. Among these are ambiguous land use laws, lacking public education and civic engagement, and threats of sea-level rise to a significant portion of O‘ahu’s urban districts. Based on the results of the environmental scan, four policy recommendations were made that were deemed most beneficial to current and future developments, including a land use law reform, forming a Smart Urban Development and Sustainability Committee, pushing for better public education and civic engagement, and finally, a post-pandemic plan intended to support a self-sustaining economy. This paper ultimately concludes with four future scenarios that demonstrate the necessity for a clear plan to successfully achieve a smart, sustainable O‘ahu.