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 capital city of Ohio adopted a reconstruction plan for encouraging development 14 years ago that emphasized three unexpected ingredients: more grass, less water and targeted taxpayer spending. This year, those words on paper are fully coming to life in the southern blocks of the downtown area of Columbus, which is beckoning developers after decades of disinvestment.