World Cities Day 2025: People-Centred Smart Cities

Each year on 31 October, World Cities Day brings Urban October to a close, a global celebration of how cities shape the way we live, work, and connect.

Established by the United Nations in 2014, the day highlights the power of urban innovation and cooperation in creating cities that are equitable, sustainable, and inclusive.

This year’s theme, ‘People-Centred Smart Cities’, calls for a new balance between digital progress and human connection. It’s a reminder that smart cities are not defined by sensors and data alone, but by how they improve people’s daily lives - from the street level to the skyline.

Across the UK, a wave of urban projects is proving that when technology meets empathy, cities thrive. From post-industrial regeneration to community-led housing, these initiatives place people at the heart of smart growth.

Here are five UK cities leading the way.

1. Sheffield: A City Built for Connection

Once defined by its steel, Sheffield is now shaping its legacy in green infrastructure, public art, and social connection. Projects like Pounds Park, Cambridge Street Collective, and the Heart of the City II regeneration have transformed underused spaces into vibrant public realms that prioritise walkability, creativity, and civic pride.

This renewed sense of place is captured through the city’s ‘Welcome to Sheffield’ brand - a celebration of local character, collaboration, and creativity. The platform champions stories of innovation and belonging, positioning Sheffield not just as a city that makes things, but one that connects people through design, enterprise, and shared experience.

By embracing human-scale design and embedding sustainability into every decision, Sheffield offers a model for how post-industrial cities can become living, breathing examples of people-centred urbanism.

2. Glasgow: The Social Smart City

Glasgow has long been a pioneer in urban innovation, one of the UK’s first to integrate data and technology into everyday governance. But what makes its approach remarkable is how it pairs digital transformation with human outcomes.

Through initiatives like The Avenues Programme, the city is reimagining its streets as people-first corridors: greener, safer, and more inclusive. Data informs design, but it’s empathy that drives it, ensuring that Glasgow’s “smart” evolution feels tangible at street level.

3. Bradford: Culture as Infrastructure

Named UK City of Culture 2025, Bradford is demonstrating how arts and culture can power regeneration as effectively as tech or transport. The city’s investment in creative spaces, events, and storytelling has created a civic ecosystem rooted in participation and pride.

When we visited earlier this year, that spirit of transformation was palpable, from new cultural venues taking shape across the city centre to grassroots projects reimagining everyday spaces through creativity.

From community-led murals to adaptive reuse of heritage buildings, Bradford’s placemaking approach uses culture as connective tissue, turning once-overlooked spaces into shared assets and re-energising local identity through creativity.

4. Bristol: Local Innovation, Global Lessons

Bristol’s journey as the UK’s first European Green Capital has positioned it as a laboratory for people-centred experimentation. Projects like WeCanMake in Knowle West are rewriting the housing playbook, using digital mapping and community-led planning to unlock micro-sites for affordable homes.

Alongside this grassroots innovation, large-scale regeneration projects such as Bristol Temple Quarter are reshaping the city’s future placing sustainability, mobility, and community at the heart of urban growth.

This bottom-up approach shows that smart cities don’t have to mean top-down tech. In Bristol, residents are the innovators, using data, design, and DIY ingenuity to shape sustainable, inclusive futures from the ground up.

5. Manchester: Industrial Heritage, Digital Future

Manchester’s Smart City Programme blends technological innovation with placemaking at scale - from IoT sensors that inform transport policy to regeneration projects like Mayfield Park, the city’s first new public park in 100 years.

Creative agencies like Cyanlines are helping to visualise this transformation, bringing design and storytelling to the forefront of how the city communicates its digital evolution. Their work reflects Manchester’s wider ethos, a city where data, design, and narrative come together to shape meaningful urban change.

By pairing data-driven decision-making with culture, design, and heritage, Manchester is redefining what it means to be both industrial and innovative. Its evolution is proof that cities can be simultaneously digital and deeply human.

Why These Cities Matter

From Sheffield’s civic squares to Bristol’s community housing, these case studies show that people-centred smart cities are not just about sensors, systems, or AI - they’re about trust, collaboration, and belonging.

They remind us that progress isn’t measured by technology alone but by how cities make people feel: safe, seen, and part of something bigger.

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