Case 12: City Municipality – Smart City, Fragmented Architecture
- Sunil Dutt Jha
- Jul 5
- 4 min read
What was delivered: digital apps, smart systems, and platform standards.
What was missing: a unified architecture of how the city actually operates across departments.
Industry Context & Claimed EA Success
A major city municipality in the Middle East declared success in its Enterprise Architecture journey as part of its Smart City transformation.
The claimed outcomes:
Integration of transport, utilities, and safety systems
A unified city services app for citizens
Central data hub enabling cross-department insights
Smart sensors and IoT solutions deployed
A “municipal architecture” that aligned strategy, services, and IT
The narrative was simple: thanks to EA, the city now runs smarter, more efficiently, and more responsively.
What Was Really Done
In truth, many digital services were built:
City services app launched (billing, complaints, permits)
IoT used for traffic, utilities, and public safety monitoring
City data platform made accessible across agencies
National smart government frameworks adopted
But…
No full enterprise model of city operations
Departments acted independently under a shared vision — not a shared architecture
End-to-end service flows (e.g., permits, emergency response) remained manually coordinated
EA served as a policy guide, not a real modeling discipline
The city connected data and systems. It did not connect workflows, decisions, and ownership structurally.
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