Sustainable–Smart–Resilient–Low Carbon–Eco–Knowledge Cities; Making sense of a multitude of concepts promoting sustainable urbanization

Over the last couple of decades, metropolitan areas around the world have been engaged in a multitude of initiatives aimed at upgrading urban infrastructure and services, with a view to creating better environmental, social and economic conditions and enhancing cities' attractiveness and competitiveness. Reflecting these developments, many new categories of 'cities' have entered the policy discourse: 'sustainable cities'; 'green cities'; 'digital cities'; 'smart cities'; intelligent cities'; 'information cities'; 'knowledge cities'; 'resilient cities'; 'eco-cities'; 'low carbon cities'; 'liveable cities'; and even combinations, such as 'low carbon eco-cities' and 'ubiquitous eco-cities’. In practice, these terms often appear to be used interchangeably by policy makers, planners and developers. However, the question arises whether these categories nevertheless each embody distinct conceptual perspectives, which would have implications for how they are understood theoretically and applied in policy. In response, this article investigates, through a comprehensive bibliometric analysis, how the twelve most frequent city categories are conceptualised individually and in relation to one another in the academic literature. We hypothesize that, notwithstanding some degree of overlap and cross-fertilization, in their essence the observed categories each harbour particular conceptual perspectives that render them distinctive. This is borne out by the findings, which demonstrate robustly for the first time the conceptual differences and interrelationships among twelve dominant city categories. The 'sustainable city' is the most frequently occurring category and, in a map of keyword co-occurrences, by far the largest and most interconnected node, linked closely to the 'eco-city' and 'green city' concepts. Recently, the more narrow concepts of 'low carbon city' and 'smart city' have been on the rise, judging by their frequency of occurrence in academic journals; the latter in particular appears to have become an increasingly dominant category of urban modernization policy. On their part, ‘resilient city’ and ‘knowledge city’ represent distinct concepts, albeit with comparatively low frequency. Overall, the findings point to the need for rigor and nuance in the use of these terms, not least if one wishes to comprehend their implications for urban development and regeneration policy and practice

iCity. Transformative Research for the Livable, Intelligent, and Sustainable City

This open access book presents the exciting research results of the BMBF funded project iCity carried out at University of Applied Science Stuttgart to help cities to become more liveable, intelligent and sustainable, to become a LIScity. The research has been pursued with industry partners and NGOs from 2017 to 2020. A LIScity is increasingly digitally networked, uses resources efficiently, and implements intelligent mobility concepts. It guarantees the supply of its grid-bound infrastructure with a high proportion of renewable energy. Intelligent cities are increasingly human-centered, integrative, and flexible, thus placing the well-being of the citizens at the center of developments to increase the quality of life. The articles in this book cover research aimed to meet these criteria. The book covers research in the fields of energy (i.e. algorithms for heating and energy storage systems, simulation programs for thermal local heating supply, runtime optimization of combined heat and power (CHP), natural ventilation), mobility (i.e. charging distribution and deep learning, innovative emission-friendly mobility, routing apps, zero-emission urban logistics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence for individual route planning, mobility behavior), information platforms (i.e. 3DCity models in city planning: sunny places visualization, augmented reality for windy cities, internet of things (IoT) monitoring to visualize device performance, storing and visualizing dynamic energy data of smart cities), and buildings and city planning (i.e. sound insulation of sustainable facades and balconies, multi-camera mobile systems for inspection of tunnels, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) as active façade elements, common space, the building envelopes potential in smart sustainable cities)

Towards evaluation design for smart city development

Smart city developments integrate digital, human, and physical systems in the built environment. With growing urbanization and widespread developments, identifying suitable evaluation methodologies is important. Case-study research across five UK cities - Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough - revealed that city evaluation approaches were principally project-focused with city-level evaluation plans at early stages. Key challenges centred on selecting suitable evaluation methodologies to evidence urban value and outcomes, addressing city authority requirements. Recommendations for evaluation design draw on urban studies and measurement frameworks, capitalizing on big data opportunities and developing appropriate, valid, credible integrative approaches across projects, programmes and city-level developments

Future “greener” urban transport: accessible, mobile and resilient cities?

Geographers, amongst others, have been considering urban futures for some time now. They all try to conceptually understand what a “sustainable city” in Europe / the UK / globally might look like. oncepts such as liveable, “green”, sustainable and resilient are being discussed, with carbon emissions and transitions, including from transport. Mobility (or what some authors call motility) is one strand, with lifecycle assessment of vehicles and fuels being applied . This article reviews visions and policies for more resilient urban transport

Planning Smart Cities....Sustainable, Healthy, Liveable, Creative Cities... Or Just Planning Cities?

The paper explores the notion of ‘smart city’ by contrasting a narrow with a wide understanding of ‘smart cities’ and by putting the notion of ‘smart city’ into the context of some city typologies generated over the last few decades. It draws on debates, research, government policies and industry declarations about ‘smart cities’, and other ‘adjectified’ cities, to single out the specificities of ‘smart cities’, and explore what they may contribute over and above to current urban policies and planning strategies

iCity. Transformative Research for the Livable, Intelligent, and Sustainable City

This open access book presents the exciting research results of the BMBF funded project iCity carried out at University of Applied Science Stuttgart to help cities to become more liveable, intelligent and sustainable, to become a LIScity. The research has been pursued with industry partners and NGOs from 2017 to 2020. A LIScity is increasingly digitally networked, uses resources efficiently, and implements intelligent mobility concepts. It guarantees the supply of its grid-bound infrastructure with a high proportion of renewable energy. Intelligent cities are increasingly human-centered, integrative, and flexible, thus placing the well-being of the citizens at the center of developments to increase the quality of life. The articles in this book cover research aimed to meet these criteria. The book covers research in the fields of energy (i.e. algorithms for heating and energy storage systems, simulation programs for thermal local heating supply, runtime optimization of combined heat and power (CHP), natural ventilation), mobility (i.e. charging distribution and deep learning, innovative emission-friendly mobility, routing apps, zero-emission urban logistics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence for individual route planning, mobility behavior), information platforms (i.e. 3DCity models in city planning: sunny places visualization, augmented reality for windy cities, internet of things (IoT) monitoring to visualize device performance, storing and visualizing dynamic energy data of smart cities), and buildings and city planning (i.e. sound insulation of sustainable facades and balconies, multi-camera mobile systems for inspection of tunnels, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) as active façade elements, common space, the building envelopes potential in smart sustainable cities)

New issues in NGA regulation: is there a scope for geographic regulation?

The adoption of geographically differentiated remedies may be a new regulatory instrument to foster NGAN investment. We present economic insights and review recent cases on the implementation of such regulatory interventio

City rankings and the citizens: exposing representational and participatory gaps

Acritical reflection on the purposes, role and performance of city rankings through an holistic communicational approach is at the core of this article. Grounded on a conceptual framework that highlights the contemporary idea of the city—beyond the smart city and more as a co-intelligent, collaborative and co-creative entity, and on the performance outputs of city rankings as territorial and strategic communication tools that actually represent the state of cities, we address the citizens’ presence or contribute—as main city stakeholders—to city rankings. In order to make research tangible with a practical component, an exploratory comparative content analysis of three recognized city rankings: the CBI – City Brands Index 2017, the GCR – 2018 Global Cities Report, and the Global Liveability Index 2018—was carried out. Conclusive notes argue that in order to effectively represent cities, as they are lived, thought and built by their citizens in their everyday, city rankings must rely in more real-time, updated, people’s perception centred data, and embed more citizen participation and insights. Moreover, methodology transparency and accountability should be promoted in order to add trust value to city rankings.(undefined

Transport systems and mobility for smart cities

Nowadays, cities appear to be the best place to live, attracting more and more people and activities. However, not only does this movement represent a threat to the environment but also provides challenges and opportunities for everyone, e.g., people, companies, organizations, and governments. To provide a good urban quality of life, the efficiency of all assets, buildings, infrastructures, and all systems, as well as taking care of the natural environment, must be addressed and achieved. This paper will, therefore, present the available literature on the subject to discuss the present context, the main challenges, as well as the concept of smart cities, with future cities relying on the mobility and evolution of transport systems for smart, sustainable, resilient, and inclusive mobility. As a result of the research, it is possible to infer that an integrated smart mobility approach can support the efficiency of all transport networks for everyone, today and tomorrow, while faced with the threat of climate change and the challenges of citizens.(undefined