Today, for the first time in human history, more than 50 percent of the world's population lives in cities. By 2050, that number is predicted to rise above 70 percent. Put another way, each year we are adding the equivalent of eight New York Cities to the planet.
At the same time that urban populations are growing, income from tax revenues is declining, making it more difficult for cities to stay on track with modernization projects.
So how can we reconcile these two opposing trends?
Public-private partnerships provide one pragmatic solution. We can improve city living through partnerships that combine innovative philanthropic efforts from the private sector, forward-thinking policies from local governments, and support from nonprofit organizations.
As Bruce Katz at the Brookings Institution puts it, our cities can be transformed by "forging new and dynamic public-private partnerships that create a new way of doing business; one that is evidence driven, performance measured, and technologically enabled."
Public-private partnerships driven by corporate citizenship have the power to improve the services that matter to city residents: education, transportation, economic development, public safety, health care, social services, and more. Rather than simply cut back on these services in the face of budget deficits, local governments can work with corporations to transform the way they are delivered.
One example is Living Cities, an innovative philanthropic collaborative of 22 of the world's largest foundations and financial institutions that takes a comprehensive approach to improve the lives of low-income people and the urban areas in which they live. Another is Cities of Service. Through grants funded jointly by the Rockefeller Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, 20 of its member cities have been able to hire a Chief Service Officer to development and implement high-impact service plans.
These efforts are important and effective but unfortunately, they are hardly the rule. The overwhelming majority of philanthropic support is still issue-specific (e.g. education, health care, the environment, or the arts) and not elevated to the city-level, where all those issues come together. As cities struggle to overcome economic stress and population growth, they must pursue interconnected problem solving.
Innovation from the private sector can help by making all the systems that run a city's services smarter, more efficient and more effective. The public sector can model approaches that have proven to be successful at corporations. The first step in such a transformation is to create a truly city-wide strategy that allows leaders to view their cities as an interdependent system of systems, and to see how technology might be used to improve them all.
An ambitious new philanthropic effort from IBM provides an approach that is working. Smarter Cities Challenge is a contest in which cities that present the strongest cases for participation receive a team of employees to address those cities' specific problems. IBM is awarding $50 million-worth of such services and technology to 100 cities across the globe. I encourage city leaders to apply.
This is a 'roll up your sleeves' kind of partnership with city leaders. The Smarter Cities Challenge teams immerse themselves in local issues, working directly with city officials to develop recommendations on how technology might play a role in achieving: successful growth; improved delivery of municipal services; more efficient administrative processes; better citizen engagement; and an overall higher quality of life for residents. Benefits have already been seen in pilot cities such as Baltimore and Austin.
By teaming up with city governments and nonprofits in innovative new ways, corporations can make a difference. This is how we can solve the paradox that's created by growing urban populations and shrinking city budgets. Public-private partnerships can deliver -- on a meaningful, local level -- the smarter urbanization that our world needs.