Global Agenda Data Driven Cities

The report presents 20 case studies of data-driven urban innovation categorized into five themes: people, governance, economy, infrastructure, and environment. It argues that the convergence of digital and physical worlds—the Internet of Things—allows cities to address challenges in mobility, waste, energy, and citizen engagement. The document emphasizes the transition from 'big data' to 'open data' to foster a multistakeholder ecosystem where citizens, startups, and governments collaborate to improve urban services and resilience.

• Cities are utilizing diverse data types to manage urban dynamics, including 'opportunistic data' (collected for one purpose and used for another), 'purposely-sensed data' from ubiquitous sensors, and 'user-generated data' from crowdsourcing and social media.
• Data-driven governance tools are increasing transparency and citizen participation, such as Boston's CityScore dashboard for tracking city service targets and participatory budgeting programs in Boston, Melbourne, and Quito.
• Technological innovations in urban mobility are reducing congestion and improving efficiency, including the use of GPS data from taxi services in Cebu City and facial recognition for bus payments in Yinchuan.
• Environmental sustainability is being advanced through data-driven design and citizen engagement, with Gensler reporting a CO2 savings increase from 4 million to 11 million metric tons over two years through global project portfolio data transparency.
• Data is being applied to critical infrastructure and public safety, such as the use of human sewage to produce hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles in Fukuoka, and the CrimeRadar app in Rio de Janeiro for public-facing crime forecasting.
• The report asserts that cities are critical to global climate goals because they occupy only 2% of the world's surface but consume 75% of the global energy supply and are responsible for 80% of carbon dioxide emissions.

APA

World Economic Forum (2017). Global Agenda Data Driven Cities. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Top20_Global_Data_Stories_report_2017.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Global Agenda Data Driven Cities. 2017. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Top20_Global_Data_Stories_report_2017.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Global Agenda Data Driven Cities |date=October 2017 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Top20_Global_Data_Stories_report_2017.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2017global, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Global Agenda Data Driven Cities}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2017}, month = oct, url = {http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Top20_Global_Data_Stories_report_2017.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }