Smart Cities with Women in Mind

This paper examines how smart city technology can advance gender equity and how planning for women in smart cities helps cities address their broader challenges more effectively. It argues that a smart city by itself does not advance inclusiveness, resilience, sustainability, and gender equality. Rather, urban stakeholders must align smart cities with just cities, which are urban centers that plan for equity, material well-being, diversity, and participation to foster better quality or urban life. IHC Global calls this a Smart City Just City approach.

The SCJC initiative can advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 to end gender inequality and SDG 11 to create cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. This is because to truly tackle the issues that face women around the world and to truly close the gender equality gap policies must focus on the position of women vis-à-vis urbanization and the data revolution. This paper pays particular attention to SDG 5.B “to enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology (ICT), to promote the empowerment of women.” In the twenty-first century “enabling technology,” and smart city technology will play a central role in ending gender inequality around the world.