In our October blog poll, we asked our readers what Asia’s secondary cities need most to become ‘smart’ cities, that is, a city where public service delivery is efficient and all citizens benefit economically and socially from common assets like green space or cultural heritage.

Over half (52%) of the respondents said that investing in infrastructure should be the priority.

Asia’s infrastructure development needs are growing even faster than the region’s cities are, and inequality and vulnerability are rising as the infrastructure investment gap widens.

Relative improvements in housing and access to electricity, water and sanitation for the poor have been overshadowed by absolute increases in the number of people living in slums.

We need to address this problem in a complete way to make our cities—especially secondary ones—not just smart, but more livable.

This was underlined most recently in Quito at the Habitat 3 gathering.