After Enrique Peñalosa won the election and became the mayor of Bogotá, Columbia in 2003, he was able to transform the city within a short three-year period. Beforehand, Bogotá was a corrupt, polluted, and dangerous place. Thanks to Peñalosa’s leadership, the capital became safe, livable, and relatively successful.

During Peñalosa’s term, he established the land bank to support those in need. Further, he completed more than 1,200 public parks, 100 nurseries, 50 schools as well as many public libraries, bicycle lane networks, and his landmark public bus project.

Peñalosa was aware of the challenges that faced his city and acknowledged its lack of resources. Thus, he started by posing the following question, “Do you save a broken city by fixing its hardware or software?”

Cities are created from hardware elements: material components, such as public places, infrastructure, buildings, and others. Also, they are made from software, which are intangible components, like citizens’ attitudes, planning policies, management procedures, buildings, and urban design codes.

In Kuwait, we prided ourselves as one of the first countries in the region to have modern urban planning policies. However, we focused on the development of our hardware and neglected the software.

Financial abundance allowed us to spend unwisely. Sometimes, wealth becomes a burden. It can lead to laziness, carelessness, waste, and bad planning! We notice that we spend generously on large infrastructure and building projects, yet the values of these projects do not fit with its returns. Shortly after completion, they degrade due to misuse or vandalism.

This must lead us to rethink the redistribution of spending and the rearrangement of development efforts. We need to update our software and systems by:

– Establishing modern and smart and dynamic plans based on clear priorities

– Enhancing citizenship, which will lead to higher levels of participation in decision making, care for public amenities, and public spaces

– Developing better building and urban planning regulations, as these intangible systems guide all our decisions and determine our lifestyle

– Developing maintenance management systems that protect huge public investments in buildings and infrastructure

In cities, the development of software and hardware must go hand in hand, and a careful balance needs to be reached. If it is shaken, the result would be damaging. In Kuwait’s case, it is evident that our software is outdated, broken, and incompatible.