Students will find the official municipal website of the city in which they live (or that is close to where they live). Students will then search the website for a smart and/or sustainable project that the city is currently undertaking. In the unlikely event that there is not one, students will have to choose a different city. The project must be current, so students will provide the URL of the webpage and take a screen capture of the copyright date (usually at the bottom of the webpage). In about 500 (+/–50) words, students will then analyze the project. The report should first describe the project, including information such as the timeframe (when it began, the current status, etc.), whether if it is a pilot or a more permanent initiative, what department is leading the project, and so on. Students will then determine the overall rationale for the project. For example, is it intended to make the city more sustainable? Is service delivery perhaps the main intent? Is there an economic/efficiency dimension to the project? Finally, students will assess the 'legitimacy' of the smart/sustainable initiative. Is it truly a smart and/or sustainable initiative as we have come to understand these terms? Why or why not? Is there an important problem that the initiative is trying to solve? Or perhaps does the initiative seem more about branding and keeping up with the smart/sustainable city movement?
Students will write the report using scholarly standards, cite sources using APA style and in-text citations where required, and include a reference list, also formatted using APA (not included in the final word count). Students will write using well-organized paragraphs (not point form) with well though-out topic sentences. The report should include a title page and word count. Headings are not necessary but can be used sparingly if they help with organization.