Our concept of urban sustainability is changing along with our evolving modern society. It is related to a number of factors that have an impact on our current understanding of the concept of an urban system. Referring to a systemic approach to understanding the urban system, we can consider urban sustainability as the opposite of urban entropy, which represents both the "dark side of the urban system" and the negative component of each urban subsystem. Within these subsystems, we can identify some driving functions that play an important role in urban sustainability. Nevertheless, when these functions exceed the threshold of urban load, urban entropy increases exponentially. Starting with the very recent changes in urban entropy (as well as urban sustainability) and by assuming that the negative components of the urban system are connected to urban risks, two types of urban entropies can be defined: endogenous and exogenous. The first relates to internal conditions of urban subsystems which unplanned urban management can generate. The second one relates to external causes: natural and anthropic. Within this framework, tourism can be considered as one of the urban functions affecting the organizational process of an urban system. Tourism depends on internal factors and grows by generating exogenous flows. In many cases, tourism plays a fundamental role in an urban economy and it acts as a strategic factor for urban competitiveness. When tourism exceeds urban capacity, it causes urban malfunctions. In this sense, tourism is one of the most sensitive urban functions regarding the process of entropy. Using the systemic approach as a theoretical reference, this paper states that tourism can act as a driving function able to shift the urban system towards sustainable condition if it is integrated into the process of town planning.
It is quite difficult to define what the Smart City is: some studies try to understand urban smartness by considering a set of variables inside the urban system. Most likely, a different method can be found, starting from the assumption that the city could be considered as a complex system. In a way, we can say that the Smart City is a physical space in which technology is widespread, available and inclusive and supports a new growth of social capital, the renewal of the material urban dimension and allows the development of new functional systems throughout the "virtualization" of some urban activities. The process towards the knowledge of "urban smartness" is conditioned to a first step, which is a common phase in the two new dimensions of modern urban planning: sustainable planning and smart planning. Both of these two dimensions try to manage the evolution of the urban system and drive it towards a future state that should be compatible with the available resources as well as sustainable considering the future needs of human beings as well as the planet. In order to initiate the management of territorial transformation, there is one first obligatory step in common with all new urban planning: the reduction of urban entropy. Urban entropy represents the main obstacle to starting new sustainable processes of urban planning and corresponds to all the kinds of urban dyscrasia that can occur within the urban subsystems. In order to reduce urban entropy, we first need to develop a way to identify and to measure it inside the different city subsystems. This paper proposes a useful method which can be used to measure it and to envisage urban actions aimed at reducing negativity of the city by using new technologies.
This study aims to contribute to theoretical debate concerning urban planning, highlighting the need for a renewal of approaches and tools that could allow for the achievement of urban smartness. The concept of urban sustainability is evolving, also in relation to the incoming world of “smart cities,” and it should be related to a systemic vision of the city. Referring to a systemic approach for the study of urban phenomena, sustainability can be considered as a target condition that cities have to achieve in order to contrast “urban entropy” and behave as smart cities. In this regard, our study starts from the premise that entropy is a negative state, which can affect the urban system in all its components. Among these components, the social subsystem can play a strategic role and some urban functions (such as the components of the functional subsystem) can be designated as “driving functions” that are able to lead the urban system towards a sustainable and smarter state of equilibrium. This equilibrium, though not static, can provide the efficiency of the system. Since tourism interests several aspects and sectors, it can be considered as one of the forces that, if properly controlled (i.e., by integrating it into the process of evolution of the system), would positively influence the evolution of the urban system. The application of the theoretical framework refers to the social (active) component of tourism, represented by the tourist flows that move inside the physical subsystem and can be traced through the data they disseminate by the use of their personal devices, with the aim of individuating the urban zones where the load of tourism concentrates. These areas can be marked as the ones urban planners and decision-makers have to first monitor in order to control the general state of the urban system equilibrium.
This paper aims at proposing a possible alternative point of view to investigate the vulnerability of urban systems. The basic ideal refers to the possibility of thinking about vulnerability as deriving by the interactions of several risks that can affect the urban system and by the interactions among them. In this sense, it is possible to refer to an “integrated territorial risk”. Considering the city as a complex and dynamic system that while evolving produce entropy is the main theoretical reference supporting this study. The loss of energy during the evolution of the system corresponds to some conditions of inefficiency that involve the whole system and, as such, this lost energy can be assumed as a “systemic entropy”. Is it possible to measure the levels of this vulnerability of the urban system when it stays in ordinary conditions, namely not during stress states that modify the state of equilibrium of the system itself? It is possible to assess the production of this “internal entropy”? In order to answer to these questions in mind, this study aims at analyzing dyscrasias that can occur within the main components of the urban system in order to individuate possible strategies able both to mitigate the fragility of the urban system and to improve its resilience.
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