Smart Government

“Smart government” is the framing Jeff Friedman uses to reposition the better-known “smart cities” idea, anchored in his work at New York University’s center on the topic. Per Kyle’s notes, Friedman argues “there’s no such thing as a smart city because there’s no such thing as a city; a city is a construct” — and prefers to organize the work around the citizen and community rather than around the city as a technological object. The move is deliberately deflationary: it pulls the emphasis away from sensors, dashboards, and urban tech toward the human and institutional layer of governing.

The concept surfaces from a single networking call in Kyle’s wiki, where Friedman — a former Microsoft government-sales executive and turnaround consultant for small cities — discussed smart government and the use of data in urban government. It remains thinly sourced here, grounded in that one conversation.

Where this appears

• Jeff Friedman — leads NYU’s center for “smart government,” reframing “smart cities” away from technology toward citizen and community.