| dc.description.abstract | Growing urbanisation and related sustainability challenges assign nowadays to cities a key role in problem-solving, and cities’ governments need to devise new governance approaches allowing for a resolution of those challenges.
Recently has come to the fore a new concept for the sustainable development of urban areas, the Smart City. This concept takes into account the benefits that the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) could provide to the environmental, economic and social performance of cities. It is believed that through a pervasive use of ICT it is possible to make a more efficient and effective use of resources, foster economic competitiveness and solve problems of poverty and social exclusion. Nevertheless, this concept, even if is starting to be widely applied in practice, it is still lacking conceptual clarity. In particular, there is a lack of understanding on the actual contribution the Smart City can provide to social sustainability issues.
In Europe the Smart City concept has captured the attention of policy-makers and has been adopted by many cities. Further, it is promoted also by the European Union in its Europe 20-20-20 strategy. However, it has been noted that European cities taking on a Smart City approach focus mainly on enhancing their economic and environmental performance, while only partially, if at all, dealing with their social sustainability.
In a European context characterised by growing social exclusion and fragmentation and by a dwindling well-being, it should be better understood how the emerging Smart City approach to urban development can provide an answer to these issues.
Accordingly, this study wanted to investigate and discern which type of contribution can the Smart City approach to the governance of urban areas give to social sustainability. Specifically, the main focus was the role local public administrations have in this respect, since they are the initiators of Smart City initiatives.
In order to find out, this research has compared the Smart City strategies of three European cities, namely Bologna, Montpellier and Ghent, drawing from a large amount of data including policy documents, interviews with practitioners, and on-field observations. The results are an in-depth analysis of the evolution of those strategies and the policies and interventions cities put in place through a SC governance approach so as to foster social sustainability, and insights into the elements that can bring a city to adopt a Smart City strategy addressing social exclusion and fragmentation. | |
