Can you imagine knowing where to park as soon as you get to Sydney's central business district? Not having to drive around but instead saving that petrol and avoiding paying crazily expensive parking fees? This is the life of Santander's citizens today - not 10 years from now - and it's real.
While many Australians still consider "smart cities" just a buzz phrase, the city of Santander, in Spain, already has more than 12,000 sensors in its downtown area that measure the amount of garbage in containers, air pollution levels, traffic congestion and even detect available parking spaces. 
All this information is then communicated directly to the people, businesses or authorities, so they can make informed decisions.
A smart city differs from a "normal" city in the way it employs technology to make urban centres more efficient, affordable, sustainable and, in the end, liveable. Cities around the world, including London, Boston, Bristol, Manchester, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Songdo and many more, have already jumped on the smart city bandwagon, incorporating innovative technology into their infrastructure. Governments in other countries are embracing smart cities as part of their federal initiatives - India is going all out and plans to build 100 smart cities.

Lagging behind
So where does Australia stand in the international smart cities race? Are we even competing?
So far the North Sydney Council has implemented sensors similar to the ones in Santander, but, instead of alerting drivers around the area to available car parks, they are aimed at making it easier for parking inspectors to fine overstayers.
The difference between Santander's local government and the North Sydney Council is not only the way in which each one uses the same technology, but what they use it for. The sensors in the Spanish city aim to reduce traffic - it's widely cited that 30 per cent of congestion is caused by cars looking for parking. Santander's sensors save drivers time, while the ones in North Sydney don't save them anything - they don't even communicate back to the driver.
In my opinion, this completely misses the point.

Serving the people
Dan Hill, of urban innovators the Future Cities Catapult, says a smart city needs to emerge from the ground up - or what he describes as "the bottom-up or citizen-led approach" - meaning the foundation has to be inhabitants' well-being, and they need to agree with these solutions and embrace them.
According to Hill, the most important thing smart cities do is increase public participation by encouraging people to share information in order to help each other.
There are pockets of state-led innovation, though. Let's take Transport for NSW apps, such as TripView and TripGo, which deliver real-time data on public and private transport to users, including exact arrival time, delays, roads under construction and estimated cost.
These simple apps pull data from buses, trains, ferries and highways across the state, helping commuters to decide their best option to go from point A to point B.
Now, let's take these technologies to the next level and imagine data collection points placed at every traffic light in Sydney, adjusting the phasing of the lights accordingly. Picture yourself at the M5 and King Georges Road intersection with lights changing green on the most congested side of the highway during peak hours.

A feasible future
The "smart city" concept isn't a utopian answer to daily issues, or something we watched on Back to the Future. It is a feasible strategy to use innovative technology - already available - to plan urban infrastructure and improve people's lives.
Tech giants, including Google, Cisco and IBM, along with councils and governments worldwide, are betting their money on smart cities as the ultimate key. Market research firm Navigant has estimated that the investment in smart city ICT in the Asia-Pacific region will total $US63 billion during the period from 2014 to 2023.
We need to make sure that Australia invests in smart city technology and isn't left behind by South Korea, China and Japan. We also need to make sure our government and local councils understand that we want them to come up with, and support, solutions that meet our changing demands and bring us the infrastructure we need.
But first things first, we must break down the "blue sky" of smart cities, and start talking about it in a way that we can all relate to and understand the benefits. A smart city is much more than big data and sensors - it's simply a different use of technology to improve the liveability of our cities.
Nick Austin is founder and CEO of Divvy Parking, a platform that connects commuters with underutilised parking spaces in CBD commercial office towers.