Making Duluth a Smart City

Abstract

This project was completed through a partnership between the City of Duluth and the University of Minnesota’s Resilient Communities Project (https://rcp.umn.edu/). The goal of this project was to investigate the feasibility of deploying a “smart city” network in Duluth that would allow staff to gather instant and location-based data for core city functions—including water meter reading, public safety, and emergency response—to ensure equitable access to services, and reduce energy and water use. City of Duluth project lead Mindy Granley collaborated with a team of students in Steve Kelley’s course PA 8081 to construct a series of cost-benefit analyses for three smart city technology deployment scenarios. A final student report and presentation from the project are available.