Partnerships for Smart City Retrofits: The Case of Toronto’s Quayside

[introduction]: "This chapter focuses on the governance of city change including the integration of high technology into city systems, illustrated with a case study at Toronto’s Harbourfront. Many agree that it is at the city level, rather than at regional or national levels, where we will see the greatest progress on climate change mitigation and adaptation, for a variety of reasons (Hughes 2017). A UNEP estimate is that cities may spend approximately US$41 trillion by 2030 on new water, energy, and transportation infrastructure to accommodate growing populations (UNEP 2013). These impending investments in smart sustainable changes are in accordance with an urgent requirement to address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), for example, Goal #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and Goal #13 Climate Action. Making city systems smarter through technology enables higher levels of sustainability overall and thereby addresses most of the UN SDGs, either directly or indirectly."