Smart Cities and challenges of sustainability

The paper proposes an idea of smart, secure and inclusive city that generates new directions for architecture and urban spaces, and especially better management, which encourages the use of alternative energy optimization and energy saving in “optical circular urban metabolism”, mobilizing resources and technological behaviors that can make sustainable, and therefore more competitive territory. Future city concept focuses on the optimization of the relationship between technological advancement and challenges of sustainability at the urban scale. A common element in all the cities of the future must be the environmental virtuosity and the participation of smart community. To address the social problems of urban and metropolitan (mobility, security and territorial monitoring, etc.) is not enough to imagine individual services compared to question varied of services, energy control, urban security; policy must be implemented for environmental performance (efficiency and environmental virtuosity) optimizing the participation of the urban community. The implementation of the new idea of the city will strengthen the effective participation of citizens in decision-making: promoting of digital pages and the use of tools that allow you to influence the drafting of policies through electronically dialogue systems. An approach to the city and urban society problems focuses on “prevention”; the answers given by the planning instruments to the new social needs do not end in the “spatialization” of welfare policies. Multiethnic city and security. To elaborate a scientific structure (of knowledge) focused on man, common in multi-ethnic cities in Europe, with the purpose to (evaluate different options) boost the communication and trans-cultural and inter-cultural interaction

Smart Cities: Towards a New Citizenship Regime? A Discourse Analysis of the British Smart City Standard

Growing practice interest in smart cities has led to calls for a less technology-oriented and more citizen-centric approach. In response, this articles investigates the citizenship mode promulgated by the smart city standard of the British Standards Institution. The analysis uses the concept of citizenship regime and a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods to discern key discursive frames defining the smart city and the particular citizenship dimensions brought into play. The results confirm an explicit citizenship rationale guiding the smart city (standard), although this displays some substantive shortcomings and contradictions. The article concludes with recommendations for both further theory and practice development

Intelligently-Sustainable Cities? Assessing the contribution of Intelligent and Knowledge City Programmes to the achievement of urban sustainability

The current challenges that the world is facing are urging us to re-think the structure and functioning of our social and economic systems. A critical paradigm shift is required if issues such as climate change, growing poverty, depletion of natural resources and uncertain energy futures are to be effectively solved. Global leaders and scientists all over the world have agreed that the time has come for a new form of development to radically transform our classic models of growth so that they embrace the concept of sustainability. But if achieving sustainability appears as a straightforward solution, the same cannot be said regarding the strategies required for turning this new paradigm of development into concrete actions. In this scenario, cities are called to take the lead. In fact, cities are the systems where the three pillars of sustainability merge together (i.e. economy, environment and society), they are the largest consumers of resources and producers of waste, and they are the center of economic activities and engines of wealth production. But above all, their key role in guiding this transition is evidenced by the prospect of a dramatic increase in urban population. Cities urgently need new forms of urban planning and management that can deal with these challenges while remaining competitive as they enter in the era of Global City Regions. In a nutshell, they have to become socially, economically and environmentally sustainable. In the quest for achieving Sustainable Cities, many governments have placed their bid on Intelligent and Knowledge City Programmes (ICPs and KCPs), mainly as a consequence of the uncertainties related to the performance of different urban structures in terms of sustainability, their excessively long implementation time and their significant costs. These programmes exploit state of the art Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the city’s digital infrastructure for different purposes. The goal of ICPs is to pursue urban operational excellence through the improved management of the city’s sectors and infrastructure, while KCPs are designed for improving territorial governance systems and for turning the city into an innovation hub that nurtures knowledge and creativity. ICPs and KCPs are being mostly implemented in the more developed regions of the world, where mature cities characterized by abundant infrastructure legacy and scarcity of land are located. But as governments believe that the strategy of creating “smarter cities” will also result in the achievement of sustainability, the precise connection between the concepts of sustainable and intelligence is not entirely clear. Nobody argues on the desirability of making cities smarter, but the fundamental questions of how and to what extent can ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement of urban sustainability lack a precise answer. The goal of this research project is to determine whether the connection between Sustainable and Intelligent Cities is supported by evidence or simply affected by wishful thinking. To accomplish the goal, a methodology for investigating the modalities through which ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement or urban sustainability is developed. The proposed assessment model is then applied to general theory on Intelligent and Knowledge Cities, and to case studies which will provide more insights on the nature of these two urban initiatives. This research is structured as follows: Chapter 1: Understanding the essentials of Sustainable Development. Chapter 2: Recognizing the configuration of Sustainable Cities. Chapter 3: Developing a system for monitoring the progress of cities towards sustainability. Chapter 4: Identifying the features and value added of ICPs and KCPs Chapter 5: Assessing the contribution of ICPs and KCPs to urban sustainability Chapter 6: Final conclusions The number of case studies analyzed only allows the formulation of preliminary conclusions (the project provides recommendations for directing future research efforts). The results of this research evidence that: A. Through improved management of urban sectors and infrastructure (with particular emphasis on the electricity grid), ICPs mainly contribute to the achievement of a sustainable urban metabolism (i.e. reduced consumption of non-renewable energy and natural resources, and reduced environmental impact of urban sub-systems), while KCPs support this goal by promoting behavior changes within the community and, in some cases, through the promotion of innovation-based activities. B. Through improved urban safety and mobility, better governance systems and the development of a knowledge-based economy, ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement of a sustainable society (i.e. improved quality of life and attractiveness of the city). C. Through improved management of urban sectors and infrastructure and the development of a knowledge-based economy, ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement of a sustainable economy (i.e. higher short- and long-term competitiveness). D. Through the improved management of environmental compartments, ICPs are facilitators for the achievement of a sustainable environment (i.e. preservation of the three environmental compartments and biodiversity). However, the main contribution of ICPs to this pillar derives from the optimization of the city’s infrastructure and services, which reduces the environmental impact of urban sectors by lowering the emissions of toxic substances and consumption of natural resources. KCPs also contribute to this goal by promoting behavior changes within the community which are more eco-compatible. Despite the positive contribution of ICPs and KCPs to the achievement of urban sustainability, this research evidences that other actions are required for pursuing truly sustainable urban environments. In fact, the achievement of Sustainable Cities is compromised by the prospects of a dramatic growth in urban population and increasing consumption levels in emerging countries. These two trends seriously hamper the world’s journey towards sustainability, and there is not much that ICPs and KCPs can do to slow them down. These programmes can, however, limit the negative impacts of these two trends, but other actions are urgently required. Furthermore, this research underlines that in order for ICPs and KCPs to successfully leverage sustainability, “optimization” of urban sectors and “behavior changes” need to be pursued in tandem. The main reason justifying this need is to reduce the probability that higher urban efficiency indirectly translates into increasing per capita consumption levels. Reflecting in general terms on the contribution of ICPs and KCPs to urban sustainability, this research noticed that a considerable number of these programmes deeply rely on the extent to which humans become “intelligent”. In fact, both ICPs and KCPs are enablers of human and collective intelligence, which means that their implementation does not guarantee that citizens will change their behaviors as planned. While the effects of ICPs directly optimizing urban sectors and infrastructure (i.e. through automated management systems or by supporting urban managers take more efficient and effective decisions) are more quantifiable, the indirect contribution of programmes ultimately relying on the “good will” of citizens is hard to predict. In fact, most of these programmes dealing with human behavior are being implemented in the form of pilots (i.e. Amsterdam Smart City). Whereas the costs of ICPs and KCPs are quantifiable, their exact benefits are still vague and too dependent on the assumption that humans act rationally and that they are willing to change their consumption habits. The basic principle is that, besides the obstacles faced by Intelligent and Knowledge Cities, becoming smart requires efforts, and not just in the form of investments in ICT and digital infrastructure. In conclusion, this research demonstrates that urban intelligence and sustainability are strongly related, but it is incorrect to consider them as the two opposite sides of the same medal. At the present moment, ICPs and KCPs represent the best tools for supporting cities (especially the ones with significant infrastructure legacy) in their journey towards true sustainability, but other actions are required for the achievement of this goal. Altogether, the conclusions of this research indicate that Intelligent and Knowledge City Programmes are the best known enablers of sustainable urban environments. "Being an Intelligent-Knowledge City is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a Sustainable City."Engineering and Policy AnalysisPolicy, Organization, Law and GamingTechnology, Policy and Managemen

Unveiling Urban Sprawl in the Mediterranean Region: Towards a Latent Urban Transformation?

The relationship between form and function in European Mediterranean cities has been widely addressed from various perspectives. A number of studies indicate that, until the 1980s, compactness was a key trait of several cities of the Northern Mediterranean. However, after the ‘compact growth’ period, these cities experienced patterns of urbanization that differed from their traditional trends. Since the 1990s, sprawl, coupled with population decline in the inner cities, has become the main pattern of urban development. This article explores the key features of exurban development in the Mediterranean region in order to provide material for a discussion based on the differences and similarities in the characteristics of sprawl processes originating in the US and Northern Europe. It concludes that any debate on policy responses to sprawl must be specifically formulated according to the scope, administrative level, housing and planning system, territorial and socioeconomic characteristics of the urban system under examination. It is our belief that sprawl requires site-specific analyses and policy strategies for the region being studied if the process is to be effectively controlled