scholarly journals SMART CITIES AND THE EUROPEAN VISION

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (30 (1)) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
Carmen Florina Fagadar ◽  
Diana Teodora Trip ◽  
Darie Gavrilut ◽  
Daniel Badulescu
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Strategic Partnerships ◽  
Sustainable Environment ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Business Competitiveness

Cities are one of the main factors influencing the economic development and prosperity of societies. Smart cities, fueled by innovation and the Internet of Things, are built on three pillars - improving the residents’ quality of life, business competitiveness, and ensuring a sustainable environment. When applied within the six urban areas: economy, mobility, security, education, living conditions, and environment, cities can much faster make the transition to smart cities. The term smart city is often associated with the desire for accelerated modernization of various spatial and urban social interactions, the term “smart city” often being fuelled by technological developments. Proof of this are the terms used to define the same concept: “digital city”, “e-communities”, “intelligent city”, “e-City”, “wired city”. However, a smart city is called upon to respond to the needs of cities and societies alike to approach challenges in a novel and creative manner. The motivations for transforming existing cities into smart ones are obvious and straightforward. They come on one hand, from the threats of current demographic phenomena (population growth, migration, public health, safety, and living conditions), and also from the opportunities of solutions that can be brought by technological developments and innovation, transformations of generations (new “Digital” generations), and civic involvement (participation and inclusion) in the management of modern cities. Thus, the meaning associated to the name of the smart city does not only overlap with the idea of modernization and expansion, but also wants to combine, simultaneously, competitiveness and sustainable urban development. In the present study, by building upon a European vision as regards the development of smart cities, we have attempted to build an image of the European envisioned smart city, which is to be planned out and sought after through a series of strategic partnerships for innovation. Not only is the European vision detailed, but Romanian specific urban development and smart city tendencies shall also be briefly analyzed in this paper.

Fostering Civic Engagement in Smart Cities

2022 ◽  
pp. 396-410
Author(s):  
Mariam Bhanu ◽  
V. K. Dhanyasree
Keyword(s):  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Sustainable Environment ◽  
The Government ◽  
Civic Duties

Smart cities are modern concepts that aim to provide better living conditions to their citizens by creating a sustainable environment. Citizens are the key partners behind the development of a smart city. They have to be aware about the civic duties and responsibilities towards the community. In this chapter, the authors analyze the concept of smart cities and what are the issues and challenges in India for developing a smart city. The authors also examine various civic engagement initiatives by the government of India. The objective of this chapter is to find the role played by public libraries in creating smarter communities and how they will help in promoting civic engagement activities.

scholarly journals Smart Cities and Positive Energy Districts: Urban Perspectives in 2020

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2351
Author(s):  
Paola Clerici Maestosi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Positive Energy ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
Low Carbon Energy

This Special Issue of Energies “Smart Cities and Positive Energy Districts: Urban Perspectives in 2020” introduce contemporary research on Smart Cities and on Positive Energy Districts. The topic highlights the variety of research within this field: from the analysis of 61 Positive Energy Districts cases to papers illustrating the Positive Energy Districts dimension or Smart Energy Communities supporting low carbon energy transition as well as selected Smart Cities Experiences. The focus is thus given on how RD&I stakeholders and Municipalities are facing sustainable urban development challenges. An overview of Horizon Europe RD&I program on sustainable urban areas is provided.

scholarly journals CULTURAL HERITAGE IN SMART CITY ENVIRONMENTS: THE UPDATE

2020 ◽  
Vol V-2-2020 ◽  
pp. 957-964 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Angelidou ◽  
E. Stylianidis
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
City Development ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Generation

Abstract. In 2017 we published a seminal research study in the International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing & Spatial Information Sciences about how smart city tools, solutions and applications underpinned historical and cultural heritage of cities at that time (Angelidou et al. 2017). We now return to investigate the progress that has been made during the past three years, and specifically whether the weak substantiation of cultural heritage in smart city strategies that we observed in 2017 has been improved. The newest literature suggests that smart cities should capitalize on local strengths and give prominence to local culture and traditions and provides a handful of solutions to this end. However, a more thorough examination of what has been actually implemented reveals a (still) rather immature approach. The smart city cases that were selected for the purposes of this research include Tarragona (Spain), Budapest (Hungary) and Karlsruhe (Germany). For each one we collected information regarding the overarching structure of the initiative, the positioning of cultural heritage and the inclusion of heritage-related smart city applications. We then performed a comparative analysis based on a simplified version of the Digital Strategy Canvas. Our findings suggest that a rich cultural heritage and a broader strategic focus on touristic branding and promotion are key ingredients of smart city development in this domain; this is a commonality of all the investigated cities. Moreover, three different strategy architectures emerge, representing the different interplays among the smart city, cultural heritage and sustainable urban development. We conclude that a new generation of smart city initiatives is emerging, in which cultural heritage is of increasing importance. This generation tends to associate cultural heritage with social and cultural values, liveability and sustainable urban development.

Smart neighbourhood

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harish Kumar ◽  
Manoj Kumar Singh ◽  
M.P. Gupta ◽  
Jitendra Madaan
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Matrix Multiplication ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
City Planners

Purpose This paper aims to identify the key factors to design efficient, healthy and potentially economical neighbourhood places in the surroundings of smart cities to reduce the urban polarization for the sustainable urban development. Design/methodology/approach A two-stage methodology is followed. First, the key factors for neighbourhood are identified from literature studies. The selected factors are validated by sample t-tests. Second, the total interpretive structural modeling is used to interpret the complexity of relationships among various factors. Further, cross-impact matrix multiplication is applied for classification analysis to find the most driving factors for neighbourhood design. Findings The contribution of this research is to show hierarchical relationships among the various factors to design the neighbourhood places as smart from the perspectives of city planners and decision makers. Research limitations/implications The applicability of the research findings is limited to developing countries mainly where population is large and most of cities have high pressure on its infrastructure to fulfil the citizens’ demands. Practical implications This paper will aid policymakers, city planners and government officials to design a sustainable smart city model in which smart neighbourhood would also be the potential solution to decrease pressure on a city’s critical infrastructure especially in developing countries. Social implications A smart city could be considered as the centre point of smart initiatives to develop a place smart, and it should continue beyond the city boundaries to enhance the facilities, services, resources utilization and working environment in neighbourhood places also. Originality/value The study explores the various literature on neighbourhood planning and then link with smart city development as current need of urban development scenario. The authors propose a hierarchical relation framework to develop the neighbourhood places as smart places to meet the future demand of urbanization in developing countries like India.

Enhancing sustainable urban development through smart city applications

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Angelidou ◽  
Artemis Psaltoglou ◽  
Nicos Komninos ◽  
Christina Kakderi ◽  
Panagiotis Tsarchopoulos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Value Added ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Sustainable Cities ◽  
Content Type

Purpose This paper investigates the potential contribution of smart city approaches and tools to sustainable urban development in the environment domain. Recent research has highlighted the need to explore the relation of smart and sustainable cities more systematically, focusing on practical applications that could enable a deeper understanding of the included domains, typologies and design concepts, and this paper aims to address this research gap. At the same time, it tries to identify whether these applications could contribute to the “zero vision” strategy, an extremely ambitious challenge within the field of smart cities. Design/methodology/approach This objective is pursued through an in-depth investigation of available open source and proprietary smart city applications related to environmental sustainability in urban environments. A total of 32 applications were detected through the Intelligent/Smart Cities Open Source (ICOS) community, a meta-repository for smart cities solutions. The applications are analyzed comparatively regarding (i) the environmental issue addressed, (ii) the associated mitigation strategies, (iii) the included innovation mechanism, (iv) the role of information and communication technologies and (v) the overall outcome. Findings The findings suggest that the smart and sustainable city landscape is extremely fragmented both on the policy and the technical levels. There is a host of unexplored opportunities toward smart sustainable development, many of which are still unknown. Similar findings are reached for all categories of environmental challenges in cities. Research limitations pertain to the analysis of a relatively small number of applications. The results can be used to inform policy making toward becoming more proactive and impactful both locally and globally. Given that smart city application market niches are also identified, they are also of special interest to developers, user communities and digital entrepreneurs. Originality/value The value added by this paper is two-fold. At the theoretical level, it offers a neat conceptual bridge between smart and sustainable cities debate. At the practical level, it identifies under-researched and under-exploited fields of smart city applications that could be opportunities to attain the “zero vision” objective.

scholarly journals Smart city dvelopment with digital twin technology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mervi Hämäläinen
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
City Development ◽  
Digital Twin ◽  
Digital Twins ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
The City

Growing urban areas are major consumers of natural resources, energy and raw materials. Understanding cities´ urban metabolism is salient when developing sustainable and resilient cities. This paper addresses concepts of smart city and digital twin technology as means to foster more sustainable urban development. Smart city has globally been well adopted concept in urban development. With smart city development cities aim to optimize overall performance of the city, its infrastructures, processes and services, but also to improve socio-economic wellbeing. Dynamic digital twins are constituted to form real-time connectivity between virtual and physical objects. Digital twin combines virtual objects to its physical counterparts. This conceptual paper provides additionally examples from dynamic digital twin platforms and digital twin of Helsinki, Finland.

scholarly journals Smart City-Ranking of Major Australian Cities to Achieve a Smarter Future

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2797
Author(s):  
Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq ◽  
Alavaiola Faumatu ◽  
Maha Hussein ◽  
Muhammad Laiq Ur Rahman Shahid ◽  
Nitin Muttil
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Priority Areas ◽  
Recent Government ◽  
Comprehensive Coverage

A Smart City is a solution to the problems caused by increasing urbanization. Australia has demonstrated a strong determination for the development of Smart Cities. However, the country has experienced uneven growth in its urban development. The purpose of this study is to compare and identify the smartness of major Australian cities to the level of development in multi-dimensions. Eventually, the research introduces the openings to make cities smarter by identifying the focused priority areas. To ensure comprehensive coverage of all aspects of the smart city’s performance, 90 indicators were selected to represent 26 factors and six components. The results of the assessment endorse the impacts of recent government actions taken in different urban areas towards building smarter cities. The research has pointed out the areas of deficiencies for underperforming major cities in Australia. Following the results, appropriate recommendations for Australian cities are provided to improve the city’s smartness.

scholarly journals An Optimized Approach for Extracting Urban Land Based on Log-Transformed DMSP-OLS Nighttime Light, NDVI, and NDWI

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 766
Author(s):  
Yuanmao Zheng ◽  
Qiang Zhou ◽  
Yuanrong He ◽  
Cuiping Wang ◽  
Xiaorong Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽  
Development Planning ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Land Use Patterns ◽  
Water Index ◽  
Nighttime Light

Quantitative and accurate urban land information on regional and global scales is urgently required for studying socioeconomic and eco-environmental problems. The spatial distribution of urban land is a significant part of urban development planning, which is vital for optimizing land use patterns and promoting sustainable urban development. Composite nighttime light (NTL) data from the Defense Meteorological Program Operational Line-Scan System (DMSP-OLS) have been proven to be effective for extracting urban land. However, the saturation and blooming within the DMSP-OLS NTL hinder its capacity to provide accurate urban information. This paper proposes an optimized approach that combines NTL with multiple index data to overcome the limitations of extracting urban land based only on NTL data. We combined three sources of data, the DMSP-OLS, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and the normalized difference water index (NDWI), to establish a novel approach called the vegetation–water-adjusted NTL urban index (VWANUI), which is used to rapidly extract urban land areas on regional and global scales. The results show that the proposed approach reduces the saturation of DMSP-OLS and essentially eliminates blooming effects. Next, we developed regression models based on the normalized DMSP-OLS, the human settlement index (HSI), the vegetation-adjusted NTL urban index (VANUI), and the VWANUI to analyze and estimate urban land areas. The results show that the VWANUI regression model provides the highest performance of all the models tested. To summarize, the VWANUI reduces saturation and blooming, and improves the accuracy with which urban areas are extracted, thereby providing valuable support and decision-making references for designing sustainable urban development.

scholarly journals Challenges and Barriers for Net‐Zero/Positive Energy Buildings and Districts—Empirical Evidence from the Smart City Project SPARCS

Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Daria Uspenskaia ◽  
Karl Specht ◽  
Hendrik Kondziella ◽  
Thomas Bruckner
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Positive Energy ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
Multidimensional Representation

Without decarbonizing cities energy and climate objectives cannot be achieved as cities account for approximately two thirds of energy consumption and emissions. This goal of decarbonizing cities has to be facilitated by promoting net-zero/positive energy buildings and districts and replicating them, driving cities towards sustainability goals. Many projects in smart cities demonstrate novel and groundbreaking low-carbon solutions in demonstration and lighthouse projects. However, as the historical, geographic, political, social and economic context of urban areas vary greatly, it is not always easy to repeat the solution in another city or even district. It is therefore important to look for the opportunities to scale up or repeat successful pilots. The purpose of this paper is to explore common trends in technologies and replication strategies for positive energy buildings or districts in smart city projects, based on the practical experience from a case study in Leipzig—one of the lighthouse cities in the project SPARCS. One of the key findings the paper has proven is the necessity of a profound replication modelling to deepen the understanding of upscaling processes. Three models analyzed in this article are able to provide a multidimensional representation of the solution to be replicated.

scholarly journals Smart Cities for Sustainable Development in India: Opportunities and Challenges

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaidehi Daptardar ◽  
Manasi Gore
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Inclusive Development ◽  
Sustainable Environment ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Efficient Resource ◽  
Development Goals

The concept of Sustainable development underlines the long lasting development of an economy by an efficient resource use fulfilling the economic, social and environmental aspects together. The SDGs by the UNDP focus  on 17 goals for all countries to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.The mission of Smart Cities in India is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart’ Solutions. The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development of the Mega cities, an indispensable outcome of the development process and urbanization implied in it. During the course of economic development over last 70 years in India, many cities have emerged as unsustainable and highly vulnerable to manmade calamities.This paper would elaborate on the details of Smart city project in India in the light of Sustainable development. The Smart cities mission though aims at sustainable development, this path is full of challenges along with some opportunities in disguise. The paper would suggest some policy implications such as developing smart villages along with these smart cities to bridge the gap between the rural and urban India.   Keywords: Smart city mission, Sustainable development, Smart villages, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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