Smart Regional Spaces: Ready Set Go!

Up to now, the ‘smart cities movement’ has been all about urban areas and the challenges that come with high density living, traffic congestion, and city open space. That conversation needs to turn to regional areas, so that regional councils and communities can benefit from innovations in community management,infrastructure and the design of public spaces.  

UNSW Built Environment and the University of Sydney are partnering with the Department of Regional NSW to work together to create smart places and enable equitable digital inclusion for all communities in regional NSW. The $2.24 million Project is funded by the Digital Restart Fund under the Smart Places Acceleration Program. It commenced in March 2022 and runs for 16 months. It will provide regional councils and communities with the tools to enable them to identify smart initiatives, as well as co-design their own journey to improved local services and public spaces. Councils, industry and individuals are increasingly looking for ways to make better decisions with positive impacts on the livability and resilience of their towns and regional spaces. Smart initiatives can help this process by integrating technology into the built and natural environment leading to improved public infrastructure, smart governance, improved asset management, and evidence-based decision-making.
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The NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment’s Smart Places Strategy was designed in 2020 to foster good outcomes for metropolitan and regional infrastructure, the economy, land use, and digital technology to ‘improve the productivity, livability and resilience of cities, towns, and communities’. Yet the Australian Digital Inclusion Index, which measures Australia’s digital divide, reaffirms that ‘the divide between metropolitan and regional areas is marked’.
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Together with three local government partners: Lithgow City Council, Parkes Shire Council and Armidale Regional Council, this project will:
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1. Advance the relevance and application of smart places resources for regional NSW;
2. Create a smart knowledge network of experts throughout the regions; and
3. Launch the ‘Start Smart-Ready Program’ as a plan of action that will be free and available to all 91 regional NSW councils to build their capacity to get ready, set, go! on completion of the project in June 2023.
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The project builds on the lessons learnt from developing the ChillOUT hubs. These multi-functional smart hubs, fully IT-enabled with smart furniture, solar power, free wifi and charging points were designed to increase community connectivity, enable knowledge exchange and provide flexible spaces for work and play. The project was funded by an Australian Commonwealth Government Cities and Suburbs grant and underpinned by a strong philosophical orientation shared by the project partners: Georges River Council, Street Furniture Australia, UNSW Built Environment and the University of Sydney. The ChillOUT hub received the Planning Institute Australia (NSW) ‘Best small project’  award in 2020, the National Planning Institute of Australia’s ‘Best small project’ award in 2021 and a Gold Level Good Design Award in 2022.

UNSW Built Environment Team
Associate Professor Kate Bishop
Associate Professor Christine Steinmetz-Weiss

Project Partners:
University of Sydney
Regional NSW
Lithgow City Council
Parkes Shire Council
Armidale Regional Council.

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