People of different fields came together for the same dream of building a smart city.

The prospect of a gleaming, green, high-tech experimental city was personally motivating to participants from diverse industry backgrounds, ranging from software to real estate development to city government. Their enthusiasm for the project’s unique combination of technical innovation and bold demonstration of new possibilities brought people together and gave them, for all their differences, a shared identity.

The glue that held Living PlanIT together had long been the company’s founding vision. But over time, the complexity of agreeing on a master plan, let alone building a city, came into sharp relief. As project leaders learned more about what was doable and what was not, the vision morphed. The new vision — to develop and globally distribute smart city software — was not readily embraced by all.