Expanded Urban Planning as a Vehicle for Understanding and Shaping Smart, Liveable Cities

Abstract

Smart city is currently a trendy concept that has been promoted by many international companies, universities and cities, such as IBM, CISCO, MIT, Shanghai, as well as the European Union. This top down, technocratic approach has been severely criticized in many academic publications. Concurrently there is an increasing buzz emerging from citizens – women and men, who are involved in the application of community informatics for self-organization in urban settings. Consequently, the smart city as a contested concept and an initiative is under social and political construction. We argue that the smart city can be better understood and implemented, when framed from a holistic and integrative perspective as a multi-scalar and multi-dimensional endeavor that is approached through “expanded urban planning”. The aim of the article is to present and discuss the expanded urban planning approach as an alternative story to smart cities. The relevance of this approach is assessed in the light of a case study of Designing for the Smart City, a course for future architects and planners, at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

Does mapping improve public participation? Exploring the pros and cons of using public participation GIS in urban planning practices

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Exploring knowledge management perspectives in smart city research: A review and future research agenda

“…Considering that smart cities are based on the collaboration between firms, end-users and local stakeholders, replication, scaling and eco-system seeding is seen as the vehicle for shaping future developments (Staffans and Horelli, 2014). Although technology plays a key role in achieving this transformation (Bakici et al, 2013), being aware of the considerable energy savings and carbon emission reductions through the use of digital infrastructures and data management systems is argued not to suffice due to not knowing whether the costs and benefits under-gridding the sustainability of city-districts are shared equally (Deakin and Reid, 2018).…”

Ainutlaatuista, täydentävää ja epämääräistä

“…Laajennettu kaupunkisuunnittelu on käsite, jonka kautta tutkijat ovat pyrkineet ratkaisemaan institutionaalisen ja kaavoituskeskeisen suunnittelun ja kansalaisten osallisuuden kohtaamattomuutta. Tavoitteena on vastata kaupunkien kompleksisiin haasteisiin ja samalla tuoda kansalaisten osallisuus monipuolisesti ja vaikuttavasti luontevaksi osaksi suunnittelukäytäntöjä (Staffans & Horelli, 2014;Wallin, 2019). Laajennettu kaupunkisuunnittelu perustuu kommunikatiivisen suunnittelun lähestymistapoihin (mm.…”