THE Town Hall has a plan to make Adelaide Australia's smartest city, but so far no one's been clever enough to work out what that means. 
The ambition to reach this goal by 2020 is in Adelaide City Council's draft strategic plan for the next four years but, with little to benchmark its success, high-profile councillor Anne Moran has ridiculed it.
"They have just filled it with buzzwords and we have ended up with nonsense," she said. â€ƒ"How are you going to test if Adelaide is the smartest city in the country? Are we going to do random IQ tests on everyone in the city? Are we suddenly going to get bigger brains in the next four years?" The plan lists better services, open data, smart infrastructure, entrepreneur support and digital connectivity as ways to be smarter.
"Adelaide as a city of firsts, has creativity in its DNA and is a respected leader on the world stage," the plan states, without actually spelling out the world-leading achievements.
Deputy   Mayor Houssam Abiad, however, said the smartest city goal could be a marketing tool. "We can use it to attract business and entrepreneurs like what happens in Silicon Valley," he said.
Councillor Natasha Malani said the plan was "an aspiration to use technology to provide the best level of services, amenity and facilities".
Other projects in the plan include redevelopment of the market district and the push to become a carbon-neutral city. Melbourne and Sydney councils have been certified as such by the Federal Government.
Mr Abiad - filling in for Lord   Mayor Martin Haese who is at a climate summit in Paris - said that "we have done a lot of good work already but obviously there will be some major challenges such as (emissions from) vehicles".
The return of the Central Market Arcade to council ownership in 2018 presents a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something extraordinary", the plan states.
The plan also focuses on repairing infrastructure, creating an O'Connell St master plan, a new Parklands strategy and growing a laneway culture.
It highlights the pursuit of new tram lines, redevelopment of Currie and Grenfell streets and completion of the North Tce boulevard in partnership with state or federal governments.
The plan sets a population target of 28,000 by 2020, up from 22,700, and boosting visitor numbers to 280,000 a day, a 7 per cent jump. The draft plan will be presented to Tuesday's council meeting before going out for public consultation until   February.
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