Yesterday I presented on the Open Cities, Smarter Cities panel at Personal Democracy Forum Europe in Barcelona (listen to the audio from the session here).

It was probably the first time I’ve had the opportunity at an event like this to focus down on my real passion – the intersection between the citizen, the state and the web at a city level.

I floated some themes that I feel are increasingly interesting in terms of how the web is shaping cities and cities are shaping the web. These were:

• DemocraCity: how new forms of online democracy are emerging going beyond traditional party divides and creating interesting new spaces for debate
• TransparenCity: how the web as opening up government and its data, improving trust and providing new ways to monitor, manage and access existing public services
• WikiCity: how the web is providing new ways for city-zens to engage on (and off) line with government and each another
• DIY City: how citizens are beginning to use the web to organise and work with and around the state
• InclusiviCity: how through getting traditionally (socially and digitally) marginalised people online, there exists an opportunity to open up the city and the web to all
• SocialCity: how social spaces (on and offline) are crucial to creating opportunities for collaboration and innovation in cities

Listening to my fellow panelists John Tolva, Xavier Crouan, Jens Steensma and Andrew Rasiej, what became clear to me is that it isn’t the technology that is the most interesting part of a Smart City (although the tech is pretty darn impressive), it is in fact the people. Strong city leaders who are giving people permission to act, intrapreneurs within government often acting alone to take that first step and open up their organisations, entrepreneurs who are grabbing the opportunity to show the art of the possible and citizens who are getting stuck in and organising themselves to act.

It’s through this combination of people’s passion for place and the power of new technologies that our cities are clearly set for a major revolution in how they look, feel and operate in the not too distant future. An exciting revolution at that.

If Smart Cities are your bag, we happen to be running the CityCamp London event this weekend where we’ll be looking at these subjects in depth – as well as hopefully helping to create some new projects to present at PDF Europe next year! Grab a ticket now.