quality as they are of access to decent food, education, and We will now explore four aspects of buildings and infrastructure healthcare services.49 that are essential for smart cities’ decision makers to keep in mind: small scale vs. large scale, public-private partnerships, the circular and sharing economies, and financing for sustainable infrastructure. e. Small-scale and modular infrastructure Small vs. Large Scal could help to apply “last mile” thinking to all infrastructure. Moreover, if a city is planned according to the right scales, it is possible for it to achieve the “fifteen minute” model, under which residents are able to reach amenities and their workplaces within quarter of an hour.52As Neuman summarizes the idea, “When infrastructures are designed and built so that smaller scale networks are incrementally interwoven into larger ones, their modular components are incrementally embedded Source: Alexandre Debiève-Free to use under the Unsplash License in larger scales.” All urban planning involves making tradeoffs between the small and large scales. Over the years, urban planning has helped different well- being policies (environmental, social, and health factors) to be Policy makers and urban planners have to deal with scalability, identified as key determinants of a territory’s or a city’s future. flexibility, resilience, and adaptability. Neuman (2020) advocates City executives, urban planners and managers, and regional easier and cheaper modifications of existing infrastructure, as politicians must develop the knowledge, receive the guidance, well as upgrades. However, will microequipment and local and demonstrate the awareness required to integrate health systems (for example, “small rotary wind turbines, solar panels, and well-being into their vision. Collective well-being and the rainwater tanks, green roofs, [and] compost gardens”53) be common good are linked. enough? Will local and small-scale solutions (such as modular and self-contained infrastructure) eclipse large-scale systems? C- Infrastructure and buildings Public-Private Partnerships. The private sector has long been Cities develop infrastructure to be economically competitive, involved in financing and building infrastructure. Four trends attract investors, enhance the well-being of their population, can be observed here. First, in many countries, governments make themselves more accessible, protect the environment, at all levels are suffering budget deficits and therefore and create knowledge. Cities “could not even exist without implementing cuts, including to infrastructure. Consequently, infrastructure,”50such is its importance to their functioning. a good number of public decision makers are turning to public-private collaboration, and they see bringing in the However, infrastructure is currently making places both less private sector’s expertise, financial capacity, and efficiency sustainable and less resilient. The catastrophic impact of as an alternative to simply cutting services. Concessions, natural disasters on New Orleans and Fukushima are recent public-private partnerships (PPP), and collaboration between examples in this regard. Neuman (2020) raises several thought- NGOs, private companies, and public entities illustrate this provoking questions about infrastructure: “Why must a building trend. Second, the deregulation of the financial industry is consume energy? Why can a building not produce energy? further enabling firms and funds to enter the infrastructure Why must a building consume water? Why can a building not and public sector space. Moreover, international banks are provide its own water? Why can a building not recycle its own encouraging funds’ and firms’ involvement in many developing outflows?”51 countries. Third, international financial organizations (such as (49) World Health Organization (WHO) (2020). Integrating health in urban and territorial planning. ISBN: 9789240003170 - CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. https://www.who.int/ publications/i/item/9789240003170 (50) Neuman M. (2020). Infrastructure Is Key to Make Cities Sustainable. Sustainability, 12(20), 8308. (51) Neuman M. (2020). Infrastructure Is Key to Make Cities Sustainable. Sustainability, 12(20), 8308. (52) See “The 15-minute city” by Carlos Moreno: https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/Carlos-Moreno-The-15-minute-city?language=en_US (accessed on 6 June 2021). (53) Hoffmann B. (2019). Air Pollution in Cities: Urban and Transport Planning Determinants and Health in Cities. In: Nieuwenhuijsen M., Khreis H. (Eds) Integrating Human Health into Urban and Transport Planning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74983-9_21 43 Quélin and Smadja | HEC PARIS | SMART CITIES | The sustainable program of six leading cities | 2021