Exploring the role of smart cities in supporting ageing‐in‐place in Chongqing, China

Through interviews with older adults and professionals in Chongqing, China, this paper explores the challenges and opportunities faced by smart cities that undertake to better support ageing‐in‐place.

at home and in their community. 2Recognising the critical role of urban environments in enabling healthy ageing, the World Health Organization (WHO) age-friendly city and communities (AFCC) movement is aimed at creating environments that 'encourage active ageing by optimising opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age'. 3 The AFCC model is framed around eight interconnected domains: transportation, housing, social participation, respect and social inclusion, information and communication, community support and health services, outdoor spaces and buildings and civic participation and employment.There has been considerable progress made in the area of AFCCs (over 1400 cities and communities are now part of the network), yet research has raised key questions around how the AFCC model can be integrated across diverse urban contexts to address a range of societal challenges, 4 how it can more effectively exploit the potential of technology and smart systems to support ageing in place 5 and how it can reflect the often diverse experiences of older people in relation to place. 4longside the AFCC agenda, urban policy has focused on how we can deliver sustainable urban development and liveability within the context of rapidly changing urban environments. 6As one of these policy streams, smart city approaches emerged in the 1990s, with the objective of delivering more efficient services at the city level through the intelligent management of urban systems using information and communication technologies (ICTs), drawing on the Internet of Things (IoT), sensorbased systems and everyday technologies to deliver more effective decision-making. 7he International Telecommunications Union-ITU-defines a smart sustainable city as 'an innovative city that uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) and other means to improve the quality of life, efficiency of urban operation and services, and competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social, environmental as well as cultural aspects'. 8 key policy ambition for smart city initiatives (at least in terms of rhetoric) has been to utilise 'hard' infrastructure (e.g., smart technologies and sensor-based homes and buildings) to deliver improved social outcomes (e.g., social and human capital including equity, safety and security, well-being and participation and engagement). 9,10cademic research has been critical of progress towards these objectives, with many smart city interventions initiated via a top-down approach, focussed principally on the commodification of technological products and associated services rather than on sustainability and citizens' well-being. 11For example, the planned smart city of Songdo near Seoul, South Korea, was designed as a new business district integrating new technology and infrastructure including AI sensor network monitoring traffic and energy usage, yet it has been criticised as a form of 'test-bed urbanism' for failing to address issues of liveability and quality of life. 12,13esearch has highlighted that smart city interventions have not, as yet, been deployed in an inclusive way, thereby increasing inequalities and urban fragmentation across the developing world. 14For example, the city of Medellin in Colombia, South America, has been widely praised for its smart urbanism initiatives, which have included connecting city services online via a digital health-care system and smart transport initiatives, but which have nonetheless failed to prioritise local resilience and participation. 15cross China, the deployment of smart cities has been controversial.Smart cities have been criticised as 'vanity' projects or marketing tools for city rebranding, without any real consideration for delivering 'smart' interventions at all, 16 whilst others have raised concerns about smart cities in China as a tool for mass surveillance to monitor, observe and control. 17In India, the commitment to build 100 smart cities and towns across the country has led to specific urban design interventions; for example, in Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, autonomous and connected solar street lighting and smart-bike sharing stations, but there has been little grassroots involvement in smart city initiatives and wider welfare concerns, such as limited access to basic services, remain. 18

Policy Impact
The voices of older people need to be more clearly integrated within the development of smart city policy to support ageing-in-place.There needs to be a clearer alignment of cross-sectoral policy streams and instruments to ensure smart city interventions deliver positive outcomes for older people.

Practice Impact
Delivering inclusive smart cities requires stronger cross-sectoral engagement, joined-up working and governance structures.To deliver truly inclusive and equitable smart cities, we need to better understand the diverse needs of older people and incorporate these into the design of smart city interventions.
In the context of ageing, research has identified the need for more efforts to conceptualise age-friendly initiatives in the context of the smart city. 5,19In addressing this gap, the aim of this paper was to draw upon the voices of professional stakeholders and older people living within the smart city of Chongqing, China, to identify challenges and priorities for supporting older people to age-in-place.

| METHODS
This study was undertaken in Chongqing, a city located in western China, one of four municipalities alongside Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, with a population of over 27 million living in the metropolitan area, 18% of whom are aged over 65 years. 20n 2013, Chongqing was proposed as one of the national smart cities in China, 21 with a Chongqing Smart City Development Plan being officially launched in 2015. 22his was followed by the implementation of district level plans within the city, for example, the '14th Five-Year Plan: New Smart City Development in Yuzhong District (2021-2025)'. 23Since then, support for the development of the smart city in Chongqing has come via public and private sector funding and partnerships, but governed by the leadership of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government.
As a result of smart city investment, by 2020, Chongqing had become the most optimised smart city in China, involving over 7000 big data intelligent enterprises and generating US$27.5 billion of business income in the information service industry. 24Over 44 smart hospitals have been built across the city, and 91% of health records have been digitised, data which are unified via a Health Information Service Platform for diagnosis and treatment.A total of 191 smart neighbourhoods have been constructed in Chongqing, implementing various measures including traffic monitoring, crime surveillance and digital street lighting. 25In 2020, the Chongqing New Smart City Operation and Management Center was completed, connecting the 55 city-level departments of the municipal government, establishing the 'All-in-One Network City Management and Service' to manage city operations. 25hilst there is not a specific strand of smart city development in Chongqing focussing on older people, the various elements of the smart city in relation to the digital economy, mobility and public space and smart health-care technologies have clear implications for ageing well in a country where, by 2040, an estimated 402 million people (23% of the total population) will be aged over 60 years. 26ur study focussed on older people and smart city stakeholders in three communities (Shiyoulu Community, Hualongqiao Community and Dahuanglu Community) in the Yuzhong District of Chongqing.The research design involved multiple qualitative methods, including faceto-face semi-structured interviews, go-along interviews and focus groups with older people (n = 64) and semistructured interviews with key professional stakeholders (n = 46).
8][29] A number of key professional groups were interviewed, including smart city practitioners and policymakers, technology companies, service providers, private companies, care providers and local government officers.This was then followed by a snowball sampling approach where we asked an initial set of interviewees to identify other participants with whom it would be important to speak.The inclusion criteria were those professionals with a remit for decision-making as part of the smart city or those involved in providing services to support older people.
The sample of older people were reached via community organisations and voluntary groups operating in the case study area.The inclusion criteria were older people over the age of 65 years and residing in one of the case study locations, with a distribution across case study districts and by age, gender and educational background.All data were collected between February 2019 and January 2020.All audio recordings were fully transcribed in both Chinese and English.A comprehensive analysis of all data was undertaken through Nvivo12 using the thematic analysis approach recommended by Braun and Clarke. 30rior to the commencement of the study, full ethics approval was received via the university's ethics committee.All participants provided informed consent prior to data collection.Participants were informed of the aims and objectives of the research, as well as what was expected from them in terms of data collection, and how the data would be recorded and reproduced.
Full ethics approval was granted by the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society Research Ethics Committee at Heriot-Watt University, under the approval number 2019.88.LIM.

| FINDINGS
The findings were divided into three thematic discussions around how smart cities can support social inclusion and ageing-in-place, including: Designing Smart Cities to Support Ageing-in-Place; Developing Equitable and Person-Centred Smart Cities; and Building Participation and Civic Engagement into an Age-Friendly Smart City.

| Designing smart cities to support ageing-in-place
Professional interviews stressed that one of the objectives of Chongqing's smart city policy is to increase community participation and personal development through access to digital services and social resources that support ageing-in-place: The smart city in the future needs to consider older people alongside their living environment.When older people feel uncomfortable in the living environment, we need to figure out how to make them feel comfortable and help them to adjust to their living environment, to support them to remain at home and connect them to social resources.

| Developing equitable and person-centred smart cities
Professional interviewees stated that shaping smart technologies and services around the needs of the older person is critical to ensuring acceptance and sustainability in their everyday lives: Age-friendly technologies exist, but determining their applicability, feasibility, and trustworthiness is challenging.For example, some older people find smart mattresses uncomfortable despite being marketed as helpful.Such issues highlight the need for ongoing adjustment and optimisation of products by R&D institutions to meet the needs of older adults.
(Owner, Nursing Home) Our participants identified a key requirement for smart cities was to allow people with different incomes, education levels and ages to access services in the community as part of an inclusive and equitable approach to building smart age-friendly environments:

| Building participation and civic engagement into an age-friendly smart city
Cooperation and collaboration between different sectors and disciplines, and with older people, has been a identified as a key factor for delivering a joined up smart city. 19,31,32However, our professional interviewees reported organisational barriers including siloed budgets, poor communication and competing policy drivers, which hampered working relationships between sectors and gave little consideration for the wider place-based determinants of health for older people: There is no connection between smart cities let's say and the planning and management of homes for older adults, or how we can build supportive communities for older people.So, everyone is working in their specific areas and on individual initiatives but the integration from the older people side is getting missed.
(Officer, Yuzhong District Planning Bureau) Professional respondents noted that building smart cities requires strong processes of urban governance and collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders, based around a common vision of the smart city.However, participants identified a high level of institutional fragmentation and conceptual ambiguity around the smart city idea with no formal process for the engagement of older people in shaping the smart city agenda: There should be cooperative decisionmaking between the local community, the city council and the local people… The current concept of a smart city is a pie in the sky, with no concrete approach.It's about casting a wide net, with absolutely no concrete meaning.
(Director, Planning Bureau) This was supported through the narratives of older people, who commented on the absence of formal participation processes.The voice of older people was rarely considered in smart city developments resulting in older adults feeling marginalised and disenfranchised from smart city policy and practice: We have not been asked to participate in the smart city, because nobody wants to hear our voice.Nobody really cares what we say whenever we give suggestions and comments on developments.We've been marginalised.'Who cares about you?' No one cares about you.(Male, 67, Shiyoulu Community)

| DISCUSSION
The age-friendly city and communities movement and smart city policy instruments offer potential for realising active ageing through supporting access to health and social care services and supports, mobility and getting around, and opportunities for social participation and civic engagement.Despite this, our research identified a disconnect between smart city policy and practice and delivering tangible place and well-being outcomes for older people.
We have identified a number of key priorities for the development of smart age-friendly cities.First, for Chongqing to progress an ageing social agenda, there needs to be close understanding of how smart cities can support the everyday social requirements of older people.This requires a deeper engagement with the notion of ageing-in-place and how we can support a more inclusive place-based agenda, which engages older people across diverse ages, education levels and socio-economic backgrounds.Second, there is a need to reconcile the smart city and AFCC domains in order to deliver more inclusive smart cities for older people.Whilst many of our stakeholders reflected on the 'potential' of smart technologies for supporting ageing-in-place, there was little operationalisation of this in the context of bringing together smart systems with AFCC domains and as a result the 'disconnect' between the 'hard' infrastructure; for example, smart technologies and the 'softer' outcomes (e.g., participation and civic engagement) needed to deliver equitable smart cities persists.Thus, whilst significant investment has been undertaken in Chongqing, particularly in the development of smart system technology, this has not been delivered in parallel with improved social and cultural infrastructure to support ageing-in-place.
Third, we need to think more deeply about the institutional and governance arrangements needed within cities in order to deliver positive outcomes from the smart city agenda.This requires both top-down and bottom-up approaches 15 to create opportunities for older people to influence and shape smart city policy and practice in a way that builds 'trust' and values the voice of older citizens.This necessitates joint decision-making, co-design and a repositioning of the smart city agenda with and alongside older people to deliver truly liveable cities that support the right of older people to age-in-place.
Smart technology and smart homes can do this.
(Officer, Civic Affairs Bureau)Older adults themselves highlighted the 'potential' benefits of living in a 'smart city'; for example, through increased security and safety.This included smart devices embedded in homes to 'monitor intruders', 'remind you when you forget your keys' or 'when you leave a window open'.In Chongqing, there has been a rise in the digitisation of services including online transport apps to support journey planning and improve mobility in old age.