Smart Cities - inclusive and sustainable?

Following examples from London, Barcelona and Boston, the city of Melbourne is further developing the Innovation District approach. Regarding its focus on place, participation and social innovation, as well as the central role played by local universities, the case differs from most Smart City initiatives – and thus asks for sustainability assessment and comparison.

Urban topics revised

The ISDRS urban theme features 4 revised topics: 6d now focuses on “smart transformations”. Are you working on the design, governance and/or adoption of ICT usages, asking how these reshape urban and regional development pathways? Get involved!

We invite contributions from researchers and practitioners on the resilience and adaptivity of urban to rural settlements.

Keywords: Resilience; Panarchy; Adaptive capacity; Vulnerability; Hazards; Risks; Regeneration; Recovery; Adaptive governance; Adaptive co-management; Social learning; Local knowledge; Knowledge brokerage; Institutional entrepreneurs;

Please check the detailed information on track 6d for the 2020 Budapest Conference “Sustainability in Transforming Society”.

Nanjing, China, 2019

Our session discussed how ICT can support the resilience of places facing global challenges (thus connecting topics 6d and 6c). The contributions from cities and regions in Indonesia, Japan, China and Spain highlighted the critical role that new governance forms and formats play in providing the capacities required for this to happen. See our summary here.

State of the Art: 

Useful critical overview: This book scrutinizes smart city practices from across the globe, questioning their implications for urban sustainability, liveability and resilience.

Instructive case study: This paper discusses Barcelona’s switch from smart urbanism towards more pluralistic knowledge and technology politics in the city

EU Smart Cities Information System Library: Provides a range of resources, ranging from policy recommendations to webinars on the topic of ICT in smart cities.

Prof. Daphne Ngar-yin Mah

Hong Kong Baptist University

Prof. Marc Wolfram

Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development, Dresden

Recent discourses on the ISDRS LinkedIn discussion group: