Urenio Watch Watch: Intelligent Cities / Smart Cities

Smart City Planning from an Evolutionary Perspective

The article   “Smart City Planning from an Evolutionary Perspective  ‘  by N. Komninos, C. Kakderi, A. Panori and P. Tsarchopoulos was published in the  Journal of Urban Technology  and focuses on the  parallel efforts and initiatives that have been made in the case of Thessaloniki to promote its vision to transform the city into a smart and sustainable place, including  ICT solutions fostered by civic communities and individual developers.  The study clearly shows that the strategy and  actions guided by the vision for an open, global, smart, and resilient city, have been  largely shaped by a series of opportunities that appeared gradually over the last few  years, both at global and local levels.

 

Abstract
In the theory of urban development, the evolutionary perspective is  becoming dominant. Cities are understood as complex systems  shaped by bottom-up processes with outcomes that are hard to  foresee and plan for. This perspective is strengthened by the  current turn towards smart cities and the intensive use of digital  technologies to optimize urban ecosystems. This paper extends the  evolutionary thinking and emerging dynamics of cities to smart city  planning. It is based on recent efforts for a smart city strategy in  Thessaloniki that enhances the economic, environmental, and social  sustainability of the city. Taking advantage of opportunities offered  by the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge, the Rockefeller 100 Resilient  Cities, the World Bank, and the EU Horizon 2020 Program,  Thessaloniki shaped a strategy for an inclusive economy, resilient  infrastructure, participatory governance, and open data. This  process, however, does not have the usual features of planning. It  reveals the complex dimension of smart city planning as a  synthesis of technologies, user engagement, and windows of  opportunity, which are fuzzy at the start of the planning process.  The evolutionary features of cities, which until now were ascribed  to the working of markets, are now shaping the institutional  aspects of planning for smart cities.

 

Reference: Komninos, N., Kakderi, C., Panori, A., & Tsarchopoulos, P. (2018). Smart City Planning from an Evolutionary Perspective.  Journal of Urban Technology, 1-18.

 

You can find the full article here.