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

Cambini, Carlo

English

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
intervention

CAMBINI, CARLO

PORTO@iris (Publications Open Repository TOrino - Politecnico di Torino)

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

PORTO Publications Open Repository TOrino

8Network Industries Quarterly | vol. 13 | no 3  | 2011 
D O S S I E R
multi-sector
New challenges in the evaluation of 
Smart Cities
Patrizia Lombardi*
In the recent Smart Cities debate, appropriate metrics are required in order to establish the contribution 
that ICTs are making toward sustainable development of cities.
The European Union has placed great faith in the transformative power of Information and Communi-
cation Technologies (ICTs). ese digital technologies are 
being expected to deliver against a wide range of EU policy 
imperatives. ese relate not just the achievement of the 
so-called Knowledge Society, but also to implementation 
of Sustainable Development (SD). Given the breadth and 
depth of these ambitions, it is difficult to exaggerate the 
importance of successful exploitation of ICTs to the deliv-
ery of SD in Europe (Lombardi et al., 2009).
ere is an implicit assumption in the current debate 
on ICT, which is reflected in a number of significant poli-
cies and strategies put forward for achieving SD in cities, 
that the implied ‘soft transformation’ from resource-inten-
sive traditional industries towards much more resource-
efficient knowledge and service industries of a dynamic 
information society will contribute to achieving more SD 
(Deakin, 2010). is assumption has not been proved yet 
and new metrics are needed to measure progress, that is to 
establish the contribution that ICTs are making to overall 
social and economic progress as well as to environmental 
advancements (Lombardi, 2011).
Smart Cities evaluation problem
Particularly evident is the problem in the recent Smart 
Cities debate where the absence of any commonly agreed 
terminology to describe ICT-driven innovations and 
developments has left the community without the 
vocabulary to discuss such matters and agree upon what 
they mean (Torres et al., 2005).  According to Deakin 
(2009) this debate has been hampered, not so much with 
the need to agree on a standard representation of e-service 
developments, but by the lack of a robust statistical base to 
measure them. For instance, it is often claimed that some 
cities are smart in the way they use ICTs to develop 
e-services. Claims made about their use of ICTs to innovate 
and develop e-services testify this. Recent surveys of these 
developments, however, also serve to raise a number of 
questions about whether such ICT-driven innovations are 
smart and whether cities should be creating opportunities 
for online services offering 24/7 access (Lombardi et al., 
2009).
Smart cities evaluation framework
e triple helix model has recently emerged as a reference 
framework for the analysis of knowledge-based innovation 
systems. It relates the multiple and reciprocal relationships 
between the three main agencies in the process of 
knowledge creation and capitalization: university, industry 
and government (Etzkowitz, 2008).
In order to explore the concept of Smart City, a re-
vised triple helix model has been recently proposed by 
Lombardi et al. (2011). It involves the civil society as one 
of the key actors, alongside the university, the industry and 
the government (Etzkowitz and Zhou, 2006). is ad-
vanced model presupposes that the four helices operate in 
a complex urban environment, where civic involvement, 
along with cultural and social capital endowments, shape 
the relationships between the traditional helices of uni-
versity, industry and government. e interplay between 
these actors and forces determines the success of a city in 
moving on a smart development path.
is framework has been used for classifying Smart 
City performance indicators and for structuring an ANP, 
Analytic Network Process (Saaty, 2005), an exercise aimed 
at investigating the relations between Smart Cities com-
ponents, actors and strategies to which the Smart Cities 
are moving to. is exercise has been conducted within 
a focus group, involving a number of experts in different 
disciplines.
Smart Cities’ components
Although there is no agreement on the exact definition of 
a Smart City, a number of main dimensions of a Smart 
* Professor in Planning Evaluation at the Politecnico di Torino , Italy. Email: <patrizia.lombardi@polito.it>.
9Network Industries Quarterly | vol. 13 | no 3  | 2011 
D
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City can be identified through literature review and 
includes: smart economy; smart mobility; smart 
environment; smart people; smart living; and smart 
governance (Komminos, 2002; Giffinger et al., 2007; 
Shapiro, 2008; Van Soom, 2009). ese dimensions 
connect with traditional regional and neoclassical theories 
of urban growth and economic development. In particular, 
the dimensions are based on theories of: regional 
competitiveness, transport and ICT economics, natural 
resources, human and social capital, quality of life, and 
participation of citizens in the governance of cities.
e term Smart City is not used in a holistic way but 
with reference to various aspects which range from ICT-
districts to smart inhabitants in terms of their educational 
level. In addition, the term often refers to the relation be-
tween city government and citizens (e.g., good governance 
or smart governance). ere is often a strong reference 
to the use of modern technology in everyday urban life, 
which includes innovative transport systems, infrastruc-
tures and logistics as well as green and efficient energy sys-
tems. Additional ‘soft factors’ connected to urban life for a 
Smart City include: participation, security/safety, cultural 
heritage. In conclusion, the literature review reveals the 
following main dimensions (or clusters of aspects): Smart 
Governance (related to participation); Smart Human 
Capital (related to people); Smart Environment (related 
to natural resources); Smart Living (related to the quality 
of life) and Smart Economy (related to competitiveness). 
Assessing the Smart City’s performance
Sixty indicators have been selected from literature review 
including EU projects’ reports and Urban Audit dataset 
and indicators selected from statistics of the European 
Commission, European green city 
index, TISSUE, Trends and 
Indicators for Monitoring the EU 
ematic Strategy on Sustainable 
Development of Urban 
Environment and Smart Cities 
ranking of European medium-
sized cities.  ese have been 
classified in the five aforesaid 
clusters of Smart Cities 
components. Furthermore, a 
number of relations between these 
indicators have been identified by 
way of an Analytic Network 
Process (ANP), an advanced 
version of the Analytic Hierarchy 
Process (AHP). e ANP model 
consists of clusters (i.e., groups of 
homogeneous elements of a 
decision problem), elements (i.e. nodes of the network), 
interrelationship between clusters, and interrelationship 
between elements. It allows interactions and feedback 
within and between clusters and provides a process to 
derive ratio scales priorities from the elements (Saaty, 
2005).
e final ANP model is a structured network com-
posed by the six aforesaid clusters (Smart Governance, 
Smart Human Capital, Smart Environment, Smart 
Living and Smart Economy) in each of the four helices of 
University, Industry, Government and Civil Society, act-
ing as a “control hierarchy” for this model. Each clusters 
include a number of indicators which are connected and 
have relationships between them. As an example, Figure 
1 shows the relationships identified in the Civil Society 
sub-network. One can recognized there are two kinds of 
interdependences: one between elements (indicators) re-
lated to different clusters (“external” connection) and one 
within the same cluster (“internal” relation). e latter one 
is identified as a “loop”. Among the external connections, 
there are either mono-directional relationships, when 
one indicator is depending on another, or bidirectional 
relationships, when the dependency between indicators 
is reciprocal. An example of bidirectional relationship 
is the one connected the Smart Human Capital cluster 
with the Smart Living one by means of indicators such 
as “Museums visit per inhabitant”, “eatre & cinema at-
tendance per inhabitant” and “Total book loans and other 
media per resident”.
Pilot evaluation of the EU Smart cities visions
e above model has been used for evaluating the four EU 
policy visions of Smart Cities by 2050, as derived from the 
Figure 1 | The Civil Society sub-network
10 Network Industries Quarterly | vol. 13 | no 3  | 2011 
D
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“Urban Europe” Joint Programme Initiatives (Nijkamp, 
Kourtik, 2011):
•	 The Connected City (smart logistic & sustainable mo-
bility). e image of a connected city refers to the fact 
that in an interlinked (from local to global) world, 
cities can no longer be economic islands in themselves 
(‘no fortresses’), but have to seek their development 
opportunities in the development of advanced trans-
portation infrastructures, smart logistic systems and 
accessible communication systems through which cit-
ies become nodes or hubs in polycentric networks (in-
cluding knowledge and innovation networks).
•	 The Entrepreneurial City (economic vitality).is vi-
sion assumes that in the current and future global and 
local competition, Europe can only survive if it is able 
to maximize its innovative and creative potential in 
order to gain access to emerging markets outside Eu-
rope; cities are then spearheads of Europe’s globaliza-
tion policy.
•	 The Pioneer City (social participation & social capital). 
is vision refers to the innovative ‘melting pot’ char-
acter of urban areas in the future, which will show an 
unprecedented cultural diversity and fragmentation 
of lifestyles in European cities; this will prompt not 
only big challenges, but also great opportunities for 
smart and creative initiatives in future cities, through 
which Europe can become a global pioneer.
•	 The Liveable City (ecological sustainability). e final 
vision addresses the view that cites are not only en-
ergy consumers (and hence environmental polluters), 
but may – through smart environmental and energy 
initiatives like recycling and waste recuperation – act 
as engines for ecologically‐benign strategies, so that 
cities may become climate‐neutral agents in a future 
space‐economy; cities in Europe are then attractive 
places to live and work.
e results show that the Entrepreneurial City is 
the policy vision with higher priorities in all the sectors 
considered in the model, i.e. Universities, Government, 
Industry and Civil Society. is means that a high degree 
of entrepreneurial activities and a constant flow of new 
firm creation is a prerequisite for finding a new role within 
the new global economic landscape. Innovation and cre-
ativeness are thus the necessary ingredients for entrepre-
neurial cities in Europe.
Although the proposed evaluation model and pilot ex-
ercise still requires testing and further application with the 
participation of real city stakeholders, it offers a reflexive 
learning opportunity for the cities to measure what op-
tions exist to improve their performances. 
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Acknowledgement
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Hend Farouh and Yael Wael and is part of the “Indicators Study”, 
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An analytic network model for Smart cities’

e-Government Developments on Delivering Public Services Among EU Cities,

Intelligent cities: innovation, knowledge systems and digital spaces

Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) on Urban Europe. Global challenges and local responses in the urban century. A scoping document

Learning Communities in a Learning Region: the Soft

Managing the green IT agenda’,

Measuring levels of supply and demand for e-services and e-government: a toolkit for cities’,

SCRAN: the Smart Cities (inter) Regional Academic Network Supporting the Development of a Trans-National Comparator for the Standardisation of eGovernment Services’

Smart cities – Ranking of European mediumsized cities (Centre of Regional Science,

Smart cities: quality of life, productivity, and the growth effects of human capital’,

The Challenge of Designing User-Centric e-Services: European Dimensions’, In

The IntelCities community of practice: the eGov services model for socially-inclusive and participatory urban regeneration programmes’,

The Triple Helix: Universtiy, industry and Government

Triple Helix twins: innovation and sustainability’,

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

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