Opinion | Almaty’s smart city development is reinforcing urban inequality

Almaty addresses some of its most glaring inefficiencies through smart city projects, aiming to leverage technology to reach its development goals. However, the city’s public services remain inadequate, project governance is lagging, and planning initiatives continue to fail in accounting for all levels of society.

Almaty, the once powerful Silk Road transit hub, has been slowly rediscovering its own, modern Kazakh identity since independence. Today, the city is widely viewed as the pioneer of economic advancement in Central Asia. It has developed into a tourist destination, transit hub, and a regional leader for innovation.

Kazakhstan is known for its bevy of natural resources, which significantly contribute to its state and national revenue. Despite its relative wealth and moderately open society, compared to the rest of Central Asia, its poor governance record, global isolation, and stark inequality stemming from its colonial past continue to hinder its sustainable development, particularly in its development plans to create a smart city.

A smart city can be described as the technological advancement of a city to facilitate safer business, lower crime rates, and establish greater municipal efficiency. For example, facial recognition cameras can help record, identify, and track individuals who have committed crimes, such as petty theft. Smart traffic lights help reduce congestion, and smart water monitors can reduce water runoff.

Being the largest city of a “country in transition” with a history of patronage, Almaty’s adoption of smart city technologies can significantly streamline its development. At the same time, however, it also bears the threat of widening the city’s inequality and being leveraged as a governing surveillance and monitoring tool.

From 2021-2025, 49 top-priority smart city projects have been planned. Numerous projects are underway that address some of the city’s biggest inefficiencies, including installing heat supply monitors, smart waste management sorting, telemedicine, traffic management systems, monitoring draining systems, and smart utility monitors.

What about local policy making?

Despite an annual budget of around €2 billion, Almaty struggles with numerous challenges, including poor air quality, high carbon emissions, traffic congestion, and mismanagement of water supply, electricity, and waste management systems. Rather than utilising its budget to address the needs of the urban poor, development plans often overlook these communities, leaving them excluded from meaningful improvements.

Almaty’s extreme inequality has taken its toll on the city’s urban planning. Privileged urban groups decide on which segments of the population need to be surveilled, particularly the urban poor, who are often viewed as the biggest threat to Almaty’s smart city development, whether through crime, urban dwelling, or added public welfare programmes. Their behaviour is surveilled and regulated daily, impacting their ability to receive the same benefits of the “smart city” as Almaty’s upper class.

Put simply, Almaty’s urban planning strategies constrain its citizens, particularly the urban poor, and their perceived rights to the city. Lower-income neighbourhoods are often labelled with stereotypes associating poverty with crime. Biased surveillance in these areas often leads to over-policing and disproportionate arrests.

Almaty’s new projects aim to enhance sustainability and efficiency, but their timely completion, affordability within the budgetary limits of the Akimat, Almaty’s city government, and ultimate success remain uncertain. Civic involvement in policy making is minimal, as projects do not incorporate feedback systems, leaving residents uninformed about developments or unable to raise concerns about potential inequalities or adverse effects of smart city initiatives. Without direct measures to address inequality, it remains unclear how these efforts will equitably benefit everyone.

While crime prevention appears underprioritised, 119,000 smart cameras have already been installed. However, the primary purpose of this surveillance infrastructure — whether to reduce crime or monitor the public — remains ambiguous. Such technologies often encroach on free speech, privacy, and data protection, enabling what has been termed “digital authoritarianism.”

Local tech diversification

Kazakhstan has grown to find itself in a very unique position in Central Asia that affords it greater opportunity for advancement. Its natural resources have brought wealth and developmental autonomy compared to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and its relatively open government has seen a far greater influx of investment and official development aid compared to Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan. 

While Bishkek finds itself in a condensed domestic market of Chinese technology, Almaty can afford diversification, reaching a balance between  China’s Digital Silk Road ambitions and its own technological development. As a result, Almaty can procure a diverse set of competitive IT solutions from a range of suppliers and maintain leverage over its data.

In Bishkek, Chinese companies have established a near monopoly of the tech space, controlling around 95% of the industry. The Kyrgyz capital has struggled to implement defining tech solutions, with the flagship project Taza Koom, or “smart nation”, launched under then-president Almazbek Atambayev in 2016, considered, for the most part, a failure. Taza Koom’s challenges were highlighted by the failed Digital CASA project, in which the World Bank retracted a $50 million investment to provide high-speed internet to most of the country due to insignificant progress from the Kyrgyz government over a three-year period.

Unlike Bishkek, Almaty is host to a range of tech suppliers. Hikvision, Huawei, Dahua, and CETC are the main Chinese companies, while the US’s Cisco, Russia’s Vocord, and Kazakhstan’s own IPAY, Sergek, and Kazakhtelecom all compete in Almaty’s tech space. With greater financial independence, cities like Almaty have been able to adopt advanced technologies with fewer restrictions or contingencies from sellers. Almaty is more likely to host and protect its own data centres, lessening foreign influence in its data and surveillance.

Smart city ambitions and shortcomings

While Kazakhstan has displayed greater tech diversification, independence, and autonomy of its tech sector for its smart city than its Central Asian neighbours, environmental challenges, social inequality, and poor urban planning have highlighted its inadequacies.

Almaty’s high levels of water salinity and poor air quality have highlighted the city’s failure to address its environmental struggles. While Almaty has succeeded in planning initiatives including the Green City Action Plan, Almaty City Development Programmes for 2025 and 2030, Almaty Data Lake, and Smart Almaty, the criticisms from the UN’s Economic Commission for Europe report indicate that these plans are often a publicity stunt and remain poorly implemented.

“Their plans are great. But the execution hits the wall due to governance challenges — between a lack of oversight, professionalism, and checks and balances,” Erica Marat, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. told Lossi 36. 

“Compared to other Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan’s ambitions pay off a lot. At the same time,” Marat pointed out, “[the plans] don’t improve transparency and actually strengthen Kazakhstan’s autocratic tendencies.”

Various metrics underscore Almaty’s challenges in policy making. Drastic internal migration has spurred a housing crisis, causing residential prices to increase by 32% since 2020. Many young Kazakhs come from other parts of the country looking for work, but find themselves competing with the rest of Almaty’s urban poor for scarce housing, only driving prices up for the lowest income brackets. Without government subsidies or new housing projects, Almaty’s housing will only become increasingly unaffordable for its poorest populations.

Only a small fraction of the city — less than 1% — is designated as pedestrian or car-free, reflecting a heavy reliance on automobiles and raising concerns over air pollution. A lack of investment in bike lanes, public transportation, and car-free areas, such as walking streets, overhead bridges, and sidewalks, has exacerbated the city’s traffic congestion. Greater emissions can significantly affect the long-term health of residents, including by adding greater healthcare expenses. The majority of Almaty’s urban poor reside in the city’s outskirts, where even fewer of these services are provided. 

Less than 1% of public buildings have sustainability certifications, with most built before energy standards were established, leading to limited insulation and high energy consumption. However, a significant portion of low-income housing is just as old, lacking sustainability certifications, and are subject to higher energy costs. This remains particularly burdensome for the urban poor, adding extra expenses to an already tight budget.

Almaty’s information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure shows both strengths and weaknesses. The city boasts internet access in 94% of households, with 75% having broadband subscriptions. More than 6,000 Wi-Fi hotspots provide at least 3G coverage to 96% of public spaces, and nearly all public procurement service activities are conducted online, improving access to services and reducing human error.

Although Almaty has established greater connectivity for the majority of residents, the city’s ICT infrastructure nevertheless severely limits overall progress in smart city development. For transportation, under 1% of public transit stops display dynamic real-time information, only 20% of traffic signals adapt the timing of green lights on actual traffic demand, and just 4% of vehicles are low-emission, highlighting inefficiencies in public transit and a lack of focus towards sustainable initiatives.

Likewise, ICT monitors only 1% of Almaty’s electricity and 13% of its water supply, leading to substantial utility inefficiencies with unused water and electricity that a resident may still have to pay for. In 2023, water losses reached 30% due to poor management, underscoring the need for more effective resource monitoring. The majority of Almaty’s lower class lives in housing without smart utility monitoring, resulting in another burden of added cost for unused utilities. Residents often cannot afford to pay for building upgrades themselves, and are stuck with outdated Soviet-era infrastructure.

A smarter future

Without mechanisms for public input and with a surveillance network that could suppress dissent, civil society faces significant challenges in advocating for a fair and inclusive approach to smart city planning. Without safeguards, these initiatives risk exacerbating existing inequalities and fostering a digital divide, leaving marginalised communities even further behind in the pursuit of a smart and sustainable city.

Sustainable transportation is another neglected area, with no clear plans for charging stations for electric vehicles, a new metro line, or an expanded fleet of electric buses. The rapid transit and proposed light rail tram projects are promising, but they only span the city centre and mainly run parallel to each other, leaving the north, east, and west of Almaty largely uncovered. Given limited resources and budget constraints, the timeline and feasibility of these needed projects are uncertain.

While the Almaty City Department of Digitalisation has initiated efforts to address the city’s existing challenges, many key issues remain unresolved. Without public representation in policy making, it may be challenging to foster broad support for Almaty’s sustainable development goals.

The overall direction of the city’s smart projects is, in fact, smart. These development plans aim to improve Almaty’s efficiency, security, safety, and environmental sustainability.

However, of the 49 top-priority smart city projects planned for 2021-2025, far too few address the city’s most pressing challenges. To bridge this gap, Almaty must implement targeted policies and development plans that prioritise supporting the urban poor — plans which have not yet been seen. Only by ensuring inclusivity in its development strategies can the city achieve consistent, long-term smart and sustainable growth that benefits all residents.