SPRINGER BRIEFS IN GEOGRAPHY

Mary J. Thornbush
Oleg Golubchikov

Sustainable
Urbanism in
Digital Transitions
From Low Carbon to
Smart Sustainable
Cities

123
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Mary J. Thornbush Oleg Golubchikov
•

Sustainable Urbanism
in Digital Transitions
From Low Carbon to Smart Sustainable Cities

123
Mary J. Thornbush Oleg Golubchikov
Faculty of Environmental Studies School of Geography and Planning
York University Cardiff University
Toronto, ON, Canada Cardiff, Wales, UK

ISSN 2211-4165 ISSN 2211-4173 (electronic)

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Preface

The idea of urban sustainability has experienced important transformations in the

past decades. The emphasis on eco-cities and the low carbon agenda due to climatic
challenges is increasingly combined with the rise of smart cities. Sustainable
urbanism, thus, re-emerges in an upscaled fashion to engulf smart cities and
innovative technical solutions embracing information and communication tech-
nology or ICT. The initial driver was to work towards service and resource use
efficiency at a smaller scale, but the concept of the smart city has developed from
this original ambition to one that applies to entire cities and urban areas, and no
longer just the transportation system or buildings. Modern applications involve
increasingly greater connectivity or integration, with the involvement of multiple
stakeholders and city components. The smart city is based on automation and
monitoring by sensors and Big Data collection, which are used to improve per-
formance and to inform governance. This transformation, however, raises new
critical questions, including whether smart sustainable cities become too techno-
cratic in actual operation, but also with regard to citizen involvement in such a
technologically automated environment. Moreover, problems that are associated
with cybersecurity and the use of Big Data, including personal privacy—and
ultimately democracy—need to be addressed. This brief reviews these important
contemporary concerns. It also discusses the degree to which smart cities function
to improve the quality of life for urban citizens and their role in enacting the ‘simple
life’ concept for sustainable urban development.

Acknowledgements We are grateful for the feedback received from and discussion stimulated
during a presentation on smart cities, energy, and urban strategies by the authors as part of the
Cities Research Centre at Cardiff University, Wales, held on 24 April 2018. We are also very
grateful to an anonymous engineer and computer scientist who reviewed our manuscript.

Toronto, ON, Canada Mary J. Thornbush

Cardiff, Wales, UK Oleg Golubchikov

v
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 The Rise of Smart Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Upscaling to the Smart City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Brief Aims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Low Carbon Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Cities, Energy, and Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Eco-Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Governing Low Carbon Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3 Energy-Based Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1 Urban Energy Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2 The Built Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.3 Spatial Planning, Urban Density, and Mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4 Becoming Smart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.1 Strategies Roster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2 Detailed Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.3 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5 Sociotechnical Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.1 Technology as a Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.2 Social Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

vii
About the Authors

Dr. Mary J. Thornbush is presently Researcher in the Ecological Footprint

Initiative based in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University,
Canada. She has over 80 publications in the areas of applied geomorphology and
environmental and urban sustainability. Her doctoral thesis at the University of
Oxford addressed urban sustainability through a study of air emissions from
transport in central Oxford and investigated their impacts on the weathering of its
historical limestone buildings. Her relevant publications include a special section on
Geography, Urban Geomorphology and Sustainability in the journal Area (2015) as
well as books such as Vehicular Air Pollution and Urban Sustainability: An
Assessment from Central Oxford, UK (2015, Springer) and a volume on Urban
Geomorphology: Landforms and Processes in Cities (2018, Elsevier) in the area of
sustainability research.

Dr. Oleg Golubchikov is Reader in Human Geography at the School of

Geography and Planning at Cardiff University. He previously worked as an aca-
demic at the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham. He has also held visiting
academic positions in Sweden, Finland, and Russia. His research interests lie with
urban political geography, sustainable cities, and energy geography. His recent
research interrogates the relationships between spatial governance and urban and
regional transformations in the context of major contemporary societal ‘projects’
including post-socialist and post-carbon transitions. He has developed research
projects and collaborations across Europe and in the BRIC countries. His research
also informs international policies. He has advised the United Nations on aspects of
sustainable housing, urban development, and low carbon cities.

ix
Chapter 1
Introduction

Abstract A literature search was performed to track the development of the concept
of smart cities as it appears in known published works. Google Scholar was the chosen
search engine as representative of a comprehensive database. Based on this search,
the chapter highlights trends in smart city development, beginning at the building
scale and working upwards to city, regional, and ultimately national levels. European
examples demonstrate how cities have upheld smart development to convey the
potential for expansion as well as upscaling and multi-scaling. In addition, rebranding
is considered alongside upscaling.

Keywords Google Scholar · Internet searches · Existing smart cities · Sustainable

cities · Smart energy cities · Building scale · City scale · Multi-scalar · Smart
development · Energy framework

Recent advancements in urban sustainability have embraced technology to foster

efficiency and organisation. In the context of increasing literacy for the use and
consumption of hi-tech goods, cities have adopted technological systems in the form
of integrated information and communication technology (or ICT) like never before.
These systems have become ‘intelligent’ through developed sensing capabilities and
automation via computer programming, with devices connected (in real time) by way
of the Internet in tiered platforms. In this way, it has become possible for companies
and governments to collect information and generate Big Data on almost every facet
of urban life.
Indeed, the modern reach of technology in cities is impressive. Devices linked
to systems are deployed to track various types of information, generating varied
and massive databases, and the Big Data that is being compiled has the potential
to function in a variety of ways and fill different niches. It is difficult to pinpoint
exactly where this began, but arguably the placement of surveillance cameras as a
security measure in cities, such as CCTV systems, are what triggered the application
of smart technology in the growing metropolis. Another consideration that will form
the discussion in this brief is that of the origin of smart cities in sustainable cities
more specifically, beginning with energy-efficient buildings and cities (Chap. 3) to
the smart energy cities of today (addressed in Chap. 6).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1

M. J. Thornbush and O. Golubchikov, Sustainable Urbanism
in Digital Transitions, SpringerBriefs in Geography,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25947-1_1
2 1 Introduction

Recent developments in this topical area merit attention to the concept and its
practical application in society. This brief is a timely contribution to this, with its
focus on the evolution of the concept deploying exemplar real-world examples, as
‘actually existing’ smart cities, based on targeted city strategies and detailed cases.
The overarching purpose of the first portion of this brief is to present the smart city
by tracking its origins and path of development.

1.1 The Rise of Smart Cities

Published papers broadly on smart cities were accessed through Google Scholar
as a comprehensive database on academic and related literature, including various
databases and sources of information that are simultaneously easily accessible world-
wide and can be used to verify the findings on which the ensuing discussion is based.
To narrow the search, a variety of search word combinations were used, excluding
patents and citations (Table 1.1; first accessed on 27 October 2017). For example,
‘smart cities’ resulted in a broader search than ‘smart city’ and this was narrowed
further using ‘existing smart city’ and especially through the deployment of ‘actually
existing smart city’ searches (see Table 1.1).
The purpose here was to examine the mainstream literature, accessed by way of
Google Scholar, in order to identify relevant thematic components. Also, as presented
later, the intent was to also compile a roster of actually existing smart cities on which
to base an analysis of real-world cases for support.
There were 30 varieties of search strings that could have been deployed for lit-
erature acquisition in this metareview. The most limiting word string was ‘actually
existing smart cities’, which produced the lowest number of results (see Table 1.1).
The overall range was between ‘smart cities’ and ‘actually existing smart cities’, with
the greatest reduction in the results when ‘existing smart city’ was deployed. For this
reason, this search algorithm ‘existing smart city’ was used to encompass almost
300 results in Google Scholar. The purpose of doing so was to use search results
that provided a middling result that was not too broad or focussed so that thematic
categories could be derived from the search results. The resulting discussion is based
on these thematic findings and develops them in a consideration of broader issues in
the smart cities’ literature, again with a focus on existing applications of concepts
and ideas contained within the literature rather than a utopian view of what the smart
(energy) city should ideally entail. By comparison, databases such as GEOBASE
(Scopus) found 20% of what was located using a Google search (Fig. 1.1).
These findings are similar to results by Pollio (2016a, Fig. 1, p. 518), who used
Google to search for ‘smart city’ and discovered peaks in queries (in the research
index for the term) in 2012 and 2013. According to published works, the trend is one
of non-linear (exponential) increase since 2009, with a growth since 1997 of 50%
up until 2017 (see Fig. 1.1). These findings accord with the interpretation by Pollio
(2016a) for Italy of the popularisation of the smart city for countries experiencing
austerity measures to combat the economic crisis (which happened globally in the
1.1 The Rise of Smart Cities 3

Table 1.1 Effects of search

Search word(s) Results
words and strings on Google
Scholar page results ‘smart cities’ 51,900
‘smart city’ 42,500
‘existing smart city’ 302
‘existing smart city’ social 284
‘existing smart city’ planning 278
‘existing smart city’ governance 233
‘existing smart city’ urban governance 226
‘existing smart city’ energy 222
‘existing smart city’ geography 198
‘actually existing smart city’ 150
‘actually existing smart city’ social 147
‘actually existing smart city’ planning 144
‘actually existing smart city’ governance 134
‘actually existing smart city’ urban governance 131
‘actually existing smart city’ sustainability 119
‘existing smart city’ democracy 117
‘actually existing smart city’ geography 116
‘actually existing smart city’ energy 99
‘existing smart city’ ‘urban governance’ 89
‘existing smart cities’ 81
‘actually existing smart city’ democracy 80
‘existing smart city’ social justice 74
‘existing smart city’ justice 74
‘existing smart city’ neoliberalism 67
‘actually existing smart city’ neoliberalism 63
‘actually existing smart city’ justice 61
‘actually existing smart city’ social justice 58
‘existing smart city’ ‘social justice’ 27
‘actually existing smart city’ ‘social justice’ 20
‘actually existing smart cities’ 18

aftermath of the 2008 global financial crunch) as for Barcelona, Spain (March &
Ribera-Fumaz 2016). The authors argue that the implementation of the smart city at
a time of economic crisis was to ground utopias.
Consequently, it can be argued that the popularisation of the smart city occurred at
a time when the world was experiencing economic crisis in 2008, with Google search
engines capturing public (Pollio 2016a) and scholastic attention turning to the smart
city at a time of economic downturn, as ‘political technologies’ were deployed to
leverage neoliberal agendas calling for ‘pro-innovation’ public spending. Arguably,
4 1 Introduction

Fig. 1.1 Trends in

publications for ‘existing
smart cities’ in GEOBASE
(Scopus)

people turned to technology and innovation to fuel their business (including the
rampage of start-ups that are still prevalent in response to high unemployment and job
cuts due to austerity measures in what can be considered to be a degrowth economy).
So, it is more than the promotion of a techno-utopian view that is being supported
here; as espoused by Pollio (2016b), the smart city was an effective rebranding of
the urban in the creation of techno-utopian imageries.
The conceptual development of the smart city with regard to urban sustainability
since the early 2000s has much been focused on the building scale and smart build-
ings, particularly in interplay with energy efficiency (Fig. 1.2) and other small-scale
‘niches’ such as transportation systems and was, subsequently, upscaled to city level
after 2008. This suggests that the root of the concept was already active (at some
scale) before the onset of the global economic crisis and was propelled thenceforth
to the present day. As an initial focus, the auspice of ‘low carbon futures’ acted as
a mechanism from which it emerged (Fig. 1.3), being supported by climate change
policy founded around 2007. It has been rooted as ‘urban resilience’ since 2011,
which became a pronounced development particularly in 2013–2015. Since the mid-
to late 2000s, smart cities have shifted in alignment with austerity measures dur-
ing the debt crisis, creating a market for technology, especially in the domain of
computing in the current Digital Age. The most recent development since the early
2010s has been for the establishment of ‘smart energy cities’; this will be the topic of
Chap. 6.

1.2 Upscaling to the Smart City

While smart cities as part of urban sustainability have captured the attention of
researchers since the end of the 2000s, the plethora of literature is especially evident
in the academic literature around 2015–2016, with a growth of 50% in this timeframe
(see Fig. 1.1). An initial focus on particular issues such as energy efficiency in
buildings was upscaled to the city level since after 2008—as for example evident
1.2 Upscaling to the Smart City 5

Fig. 1.2 Historic evaluation

of the smart city concept
from energy efficiency to
digital transformation

Fig. 1.3 Emergence of

smart energy cities from low
carbon urbanism and
energy-efficient cities
6 1 Introduction

for Milano, Italy in preparation for Expo 2015 (Causone et al. 2017). This is based
on a focus on energy that stems from low carbon futures, with policy support from
climate change concerns. There was, consequently, also a turn to urban resilience—
becoming urban sustainability research, especially in 2013–2015. The smart cities
shift is evident since the mid-2000s—aligning with austerity measures during the
debt crisis, which will be conveyed later in Chap. 5, with urban consultancy by
companies creating a market for computer platforms in the Digital Age.
This has constituted a ‘piecemeal’ development of the smart city, with individual
buildings being investigated first in energy journals (e.g., Leiria Polytechnic Insti-
tute, Portugal, where photovoltaic panels were planned for emplacement; Galvão
et al. 2017), accompanied by renewable energy to feed grids and electric vehicles
contributing to infrastructure and mobility (e.g., Agudo-Peregrina & Navío-Marco
2016; also, Mendoza et al. 2015, who advocate the provision of clean energy supplied
by pergolas to e-bikes) to support smart development. Consequently, smart urbanism
spread to encompass entire cities and regions, as portrayed in Chap. 5 for Barcelona,
Spain, which has been reimaged as a smart and self-sufficient city (March & Ribera-
Fumaz 2016). According to the authors, this has established the ‘multi-scalar’ city
based on public-private partnerships upholding a distributed network of collabora-
tions in Barcelona, occurring at the local scale (as local projects) to international
collaborations as part of international projects as well as governance arrangements
that range from the local to international scales.
The situation with cities such as Barcelona and Milano, and others, is one of
rebranding rather than simple upscaling from the building to city and regional levels.
This reimaging of cities as ‘smart’ is arguably linked with an entrepreneurial approach
(outlined in Chap. 5) that has been associated with austerity measures in Italy (Pollio
2016a). The latter has relayed to the entire country’s policy rather than individual
cities, indicating a spread of smart development in Italy in response to annihilated
fiscal budgets (Pollio 2016a). This is part of a technological solution (also discussed
in Chap. 5) that is at the core of smart development. In Europe at least, this may
be connected with the EU-Innovation Union in combination with European Digital
Agenda, fostering the vision of Europe 2020 as a strategy for smart, sustainable, and
inclusive growth.
This development begs the question whether rebranding or upscaling is occur-
ring in cities more broadly around the world. It seems that while some cities, such as
Barcelona, are being reimaged and rebranded based on a fundamental entrepreneurial
approach to smart development, there is also evidence of upscaling across countries
like Spain, where 62 cities have been investigated (Aletà et al. 2017). Smart develop-
ment has also been popular in Italy and Greece as an economic mechanism driving
entrepreneurship (see Chap. 5). Generally, however, the trend has been one of estab-
lishing energy-efficient buildings—upscaled up to the city level—to foster resilience
in urban development (see Chap. 3) and promoting green building and design before
progressing to the smart city. Although this brief focuses on this aspect of smart
development, it is noteworthy that other elements of smart cities, including trans-
port, security, public services, and so on have also been vehicles for their propagation.
The overarching aim has been that by incorporating ICT, it is possible to improve
1.2 Upscaling to the Smart City 7

the quality of life for urban citizens through the enhanced quality and better perfor-
mance of urban services, such as transport, utilities, energy, and so on, while reducing
resource consumption, waste, and costs. As evidenced in the USA, for instance, smart
cities have been promoted through transportation—with the Smart City Challenge,
for example, promoting smart growth and development in North American cities.
The current piecemeal development that works towards realising smart cities
around the world does not preclude an all-round smart development that envelopes
the globe (at an international scale) and is no longer occurring only at the city-to-
regional scale. Nevertheless, cities are driving the transition, although ultimately it
will no longer just be the smart city that encompasses broader smart development
(e.g., transboundary flows, affecting local livelihoods, health, and well-being, from
the home to neighbourhood and city to the region/nation and, having transboundary
impacts on environment, well-being, and climate change, to finally encompass the
globe, cf. Ramaswami et al. 2016) evident at the national level, as already apparent
in some European countries, such as Italy and Spain, seeking to represent ‘smart
nations’. This will be developed in the next chapter that presents a roster based
on strategies for smart cities compiled for this research and also including some
detailed case studies to represent growing smart initiatives from developing and
already developed parts of the world.

1.3 Brief Aims

Regardless of their beginnings, smart cities have come a long way in contemporary
urban environments. They continue to advance as new technologies and systems
integration are achieved, driven by innovation and fed by entrepreneurialism. Their
diversity evokes an interdisciplinary approach to smart cities that brings together
academics and practitioners as well as researchers from a plethora of disciplines.
This brief will further deliberate the origin and evolution of smart cities and their
rationale as well as issues of development, focusing on different strategies adopted
to realise them as well as the potential challenges.
The rationale for this brief stems for a need to engage with smart cities in a way to
allow for critical assessment of their development, as regarding how smart cities can
be disruptive to the long-term course of sustainable cities. There are tensions within
social-technical systems needing critical address. This needs to be done from an
understanding that acknowledges the diversity in actually existing cases, representing
different priorities in future development. This needs to be executed based on an
empirical approach that is grounded in real-world cases, as provided by smart city
strategies denoting actually existing smart cities. Finally, by recognising diversity, it
is possible to grasp issues affecting convergence and divergence in smart development
and be able to capture the digital divide.
The main conceptual inputs of this research will be relayed in the next cou-
ple of chapters as part of an investigation into the literature, tracking the concept
and its evolution. This will be followed by another two chapters making different
8 1 Introduction

methodological inputs to the study, such as a roster of city-scale strategies (Chap. 4)

used to identify smart cities around the world and detailed case studies (see Chap. 4)
chosen from developing and developed countries. Challenges will be considered after
this (Chap. 5) before the conclusion.

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smart city business models. In: 27th European regional conference of the international telecom-
munications society (ITS), Cambridge, UK, 7–9 Sept 2016. https://hdl.handle.net/10419/148654
Aletà NB, Alonso CM, Ruiz RMA (2017) Smart mobility and smart environment in the Spanish
cities. Transp Res Proc 24:163–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2017.05.084
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services building. Manag Environ Qual 28(3):302–314. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-02-2014-
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Mendoza J-MF, Sanyé-Mengual E, Angrill S, García-Lozano R, Feijoo G, Josa A, Gabarrell X,
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science.aaf7160
Chapter 2
Low Carbon Cities

Abstract This chapter provides a background on the emergence of low carbon cities
from urban planning, eco-city design, and green growth perspectives in the contem-
porary literature. Low carbon urbanism and eco-cities can be viewed as precursors to
the development of smart cities, which—from an urban sustainability standpoint—
have evolved through piecemeal automation and increasing integration as part of
smart development. It is important to frame such developments from a social justice
perspective to acknowledge that technology is working for humanity—to improve
human quality of life and well-being.

Keywords Low carbon transitions · Smart development · Eco-cities · Green

growth · Social justice · Energy poverty

There are strong implications for cities in the quest to curb carbon-based energies.
As a concentration of ‘activities, people, and wealth in limited areas’ (Hallegatte
et al. 2011), cities are both important generators of carbon dioxide or CO2 emissions
and end-users of goods and services, the production of which involves emissions
elsewhere. Decreasing end-use energy demands through energy saving and efficiency
measures alleviates the need to generate as much energy and, thus, moderates the
carbon Footprint. But even with efficiency measures, some demands for energy will
always be present while a growing population and economic development bring
further pressures. It is necessary to decouple future economic growth from growing
carbon emissions by decreasing the relative share of fossil fuels. Ultimately, carbon
neutral or zero-carbon cities are one way that has emerged for expressing the net-
zero carbon balance of cities in an effort to mitigate anthropogenic emissions of
greenhouse gases or GHGs.
However, the transition to low carbon cities cannot be considered as smooth,
linear, or even uncontroversial. The very magnitude of the task involved is the one
that requires long-term and persistent political, economic, and institutional commit-
ments as well as innovative, creative, and often ‘alternative’ ways of carrying on
businesses producing and consuming goods and services. While some may argue
that the community-level elements of a post-carbon society encourage a European
social tradition that promotes individual freedom and social responsibility, human
and social rights, balanced social and market models, and establishes cooperation and
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 9
M. J. Thornbush and O. Golubchikov, Sustainable Urbanism
in Digital Transitions, SpringerBriefs in Geography,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25947-1_2
10 2 Low Carbon Cities

peace (Carvalho et al. 2011), others are concerned that the new global ‘consensus’
about reducing global CO2 is not sufficiently engaged with the principles of partici-
patory democracy, while the political economy of low carbon transitions is itself not
immune to sociopolitical struggles—the imposition of particular development strate-
gies for cities, for example, often confronts the principles of social justice, equity,
affordability, and civic participation, thus, undermining rather than reinforcing the
more general principle of sustainability.

2.1 Cities, Energy, and Climate

‘Climate’ and ‘energy’ are two concepts that we encounter regularly in our life.
However, it is the combined use of ‘climate and energy’ that has emerged as a
policy-charged collocation to invoke the unity of the energy and climate change
agendas. Indeed, the contribution of the energy sector to the world’s anthropogenic
GHG emissions is estimated to be three-fourths of the total emissions. This is mostly
a result of the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas, etc.), which is the main source
of CO2 —the most prevailing GHG. The so-called decarbonisation of economies—
i.e. reducing CO2 emissions via limiting energy consumption and switching to non-
carbon-based fuels—has become a major preoccupation of policies in the emerged
consensus about the urgency of climate change, including at the urban level.
Meanwhile, urban communities are themselves vulnerable to the negative impacts
of climate change. Urban areas concentrate people and infrastructure, often in hazard-
prone areas. They experience some of the largest impacts from both gradual climatic
changes and abrupt weather occurrences, and it is the poorer and socially deprived
populations who usually suffer most. There is, therefore, a need for cities to embrace
socially oriented policies of improving resilience and preparedness to cope with the
negative environmental impacts.
The urgency of the climate and energy agenda for cities stimulated a surge in
reports on cities and climate actions from major international organisations at the
turn of the first decade of this century (UNEP SBCI 2009; OECD 2010a; World Bank
2010a; Bose 2010; UN-Habitat 2011). Many stress the need to address mitigation
and adaptation efforts at the urban scale because of the potential to implement pro-
grammes effectively, concentrate people and industries, while providing new ideas
and innovation that can spread quickly. Both sides of climate policy—mitigation
(locally reducing the causes of the climate change) and adaptation (addressing the
local negative impacts of climate change)—are considered to be the integral parts of
a comprehensive urban strategy for climate neutrality (Golubchikov 2011). Such a
strategy suggests that cities not only aim to achieve net-zero emissions of GHG by
reducing such emissions as much as possible while offsetting the remaining unavoid-
able emissions, but also that cities aim to become future-proof, or resilient to the
negative impacts of the changing climate, by improving their adaptive capacities.
However, Dodman (2009) argues that ‘attempts to blame cities for climate change
serve only to divert attention from the main drivers of GHG emissions—namely
2.1 Cities, Energy, and Climate 11

unsustainable consumption, especially in the world’s more affluent countries’. He

conveys on the basis of his research in the UK that GHG emissions are highest per
capita in the rural northeast as well as Yorkshire and the Humber and not London
and the West Midlands, which are both highly urbanised. Dodman (2009, p. 196)
blames high consumption lifestyles in high-income countries—for example, the USA
and Canada account for a fifth of global GHG emissions. America’s ‘throwaway
economy’ is considered to be a major contributor to climate change through waste
production and the release of GHGs (Sheehan & Spiegelman 2010). For example,
44% of these emissions were found to come from the provision, use, and disposal of
products and packaging, which is more than the energy used in buildings, transport,
and in the provision of food (p 4). A large disparity in wealth even more remarkable
within nations, as for example in India, where people with relatively high earnings
generate four times more carbon per year than people who earn less per month
(Dodman 2009, p. 197). This argument is also set forth by Satterthwaite (2008),
who notes that individual and institutional consumption needs to be considered as
drivers of generation (based on demand). For example, as industries are moving out
of cities, this establishes a disjuncture between the spatial situation of demand and
production, even though they may both be triggered by consumption in cities. Wood
(2007) is similarly critical of urban development that continues to be inspired by the
‘profligate lifestyle’, which he argues was the main cause of the problem to begin.
Not all cities, however, follow identical pathways. Lankao (2007) espouses that
carbon emissions per capita in cities is very small in low- and middle-income nations
in comparison with wealth urban areas. She shows that per capita CO2 -equivalent
emissions for American cities, such as Austin, Boulder, Santa Monica, and Berkeley,
and some European cities, including Berlin, are greater than for Mexico City and Rio
de Janeiro. This suggests that, for developing countries, including Latin American
cities, a priority may be on coping with the implications of air pollution on human
health and adaptation to the impacts of climate change, rather than curbing carbon
emissions. Furthermore, cities in Latin America may not be able to adopt ecological
modernisation as a suitable framework for addressing their environmental problems
due to an emphasis on the industrial and technological change that overlooks the
social and political context of an ecological switchover. The author further argues
that even though eco-cities stress social and institutional dimensions of sustainability,
they still reflect post-modern values that are best-suited to urban development in
European and North American cities. Her final stipulation is that equity be considered
as a carbon-relevant issue, since the wealthy in Latin American cities (and elsewhere,
as relayed by others, e.g. Dodman 2009) have higher carbon emissions per capita
and are more able to invest in their own well-being, as for example in paying for
healthcare to remedy any impacts from poor air quality.
Even though lessons can be learned across countries, individual countries will
achieve low carbon development (LCD) from different routes based on their national
reality and development prospects as well as aspirations and capacities (Mulugetta
& Urban 2010). For this reason, tailored approaches are necessary for low-, middle-,
and high-income countries (World Bank 2010b, p. 204). Still, developing countries
cannot undergo modernisation like developed nations. A case in point is China that
12 2 Low Carbon Cities

has received attention as a nation that is at a critical period of industrialisation and

urbanisation (Zhu & Shang 2010). Urbanisation can be taken as an opportunity for
LCD. It is imperative that China develops a low carbon industrialisation model, since
it must coordinate economic development and emissions control whilst continuing
to industrialise and modernise (He et al. 2010).

2.2 Eco-Cities

The potential of urban planning is also realised in designing new low carbon or even
zero-carbon cities or urban districts worldwide. Some prominent examples of low
carbon communities—some completed, others only partly completed or uncom-
pleted—have included Masdar City, still being built in Abu Dhabi as a zero-carbon,
zero-waste, car-free municipality for 50,000 residents, intended to become the
world’s first climate neutral city; Dongtan in China remains an unrealised urban
utopia, originally planned as a low carbon city to accommodate 0.5 million peo-
ple; and the Western Harbour (Västra Hamnen) district of Malmö, turned from a
brownfield site into an environmentally-friendly town based on 100% renewable
energy. Smaller scale examples are BedZED—or Beddington Zero-Energy Devel-
opment—consisting of 99 homes, which was the first zero-energy, low-impact, car-
discouraging residential community in the UK; and similarly Etten-Leur, with 43
houses is a similar zero-energy housing demonstration project in the Netherlands.
While these have served as encouraging examples, it is even more important to act
in existing urban districts, where there is a large potential for paving a more sus-
tainable future through climate smart urban planning. Indeed, most of those cities
that embrace policies for carbon reduction make a proactive use of the instrument of
planning.
Eco-towns and eco-cities are appealing in the context of urban sustainability as
practitioners turn to paradigms or movements for a practical application of their ideas.
For example, Roseland (1997) refers to activists among designers, practitioners who
address sustainability, and visionaries, including bio-regionalists, social ecologists,
and environmentalists at large, who are writing about green cities, eco-cities, and
eco-communities in an Ecotopian view of social structure that is based on biophysi-
cal and social sustainability. From a planning point-of-view, Selman (1995) presents
a case for sustainability planning that he postulates has been driven by ‘the eventual
acceptance, at the very highest levels of government, of the validity of environmental-
ists’ claims about the potentially irreversible deterioration of natural capital stocks’
(p 290). As a case-in-point, Knight (2010) writes about PlanIT Valley near Paredes
in northern Portugal, where an eco-city with ambitions to be an environmentally sus-
tainable city was being built. She relays that this development would occur before
Masdar City. An advantage of PlanIT Valley over Masdar, for example, is its prox-
imity to existing transport links. Importantly, it has a so-called brain that comprises a
network of sensors operating like a nervous system to regulate water use and energy
2.2 Eco-Cities 13

consumption in a kind of urban metabolism approach. Its buildings are designed in

a hexagonal shape in order to most efficiently use space.
Joss (2010) provides profiles of eco-cities in a report of a global survey from 2009,
where he maps, analyses, and compares 79 eco-city initiatives. His findings indicate
that (at the time of his report) most eco-cities were situated in Europe (34 out of
79 in his analysis), particularly in places like the UK, Germany, and Scandinavian
countries. But these projects appear in disparate countries, from China, Kenya, Japan,
South Korea, and South Africa to Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, and the
USA. In his opinion, the most original eco-city projects are situated in the Middle East
and East Asia. According to Joss (2010, p. 245), these developments can be classified
as: (1) new development (built from scratch); (2) expansion of existing urban area
(e.g. new district or neighbourhood); and (3) retrofit development (within existing
urban infrastructure). These initiatives have sprung up since the mid-2000s. More
recently, Joss (2015) examines the smart city, which he advocates has rapidly been
popularised since the late 2000s (as per our Chap. 1). Key criteria defining eco-cities
include a substantial scale (in terms of area, infrastructure, and innovation); they
normally occur across sectors (e.g. housing, transport, energy, waste, water, land,
etc.); and are formulated as, embedded in, and supported by policy. Finally, Joss
(2010) identifies various factors that are driving eco-cities, among them challenges
from global climate change, rapid urbanisation, and socioeconomic regeneration.
One critique of eco-towns in the UK is that they are really not entirely different from
the new town programme (of which Milton Keynes is an example) that are based on
utopian ideals and take a clean sweep approach to urban development (Smith 2009).
It is hoped by government, nonetheless, that there will be a trickle-down effect of
eco-towns that will influence urban development in towns and cities.
Retrofit development is the most effective way to pave a pathway towards zero-
carbon cities. However, new developments, despite being criticised for being disin-
tegrated, can also be effective if they extend their positive influence into the region.
Reiche (2010) discusses a case study is the Masdar Initiative, which was devel-
oped by Masdar City and the Masdar Institute as a regional economic development
programme announced in April 2006 by the Abu Dhabi government to promote sus-
tainable energy. An ambition of this initiative is to boost renewable energy generation
in Abu Dhabi. Even though it cannot be considered a pioneering project, since car-
bon neutral villages already exist, the size of the project is what sets it apart in the
world. It has already influenced politics at various scales (domestic, regional, and
global) and regional diffusion is suspected, with a plan for a sustainable campus at
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia and policy
initiatives in Dubai. Also, its global media coverage has increased public awareness
of renewable energy throughout the world. Masdar City has been developed to be
self-sustaining, drawing its energy from renewable energy and waste-to-energy tech-
nologies, and any excess energy will feed the national grid (Crampsie 2008). Carbon
capture and storage is one if its CO2 emissions reduction projects, with storage in
a national network for enhanced oil recovery (CCS-EOR), which could reduce the
United Arab Emirates’s annual CO2 emissions by 40% and increase oil production
by 10% as well as liberating natural gas now used to maintain oil-field pressure. The
14 2 Low Carbon Cities

CCS-EOR pipeline is expected to recover some 75 million tonnes of carbon per year
from various sources across the country, connecting multiple industries. Therefore,
Masdar will have an impact far beyond its borders.
Stockholm has a reputation of being innovative in integrating urban planning
with sustainable waste, water, and energy management. However, Yeang (2010)
states that ‘[e]cological design is still very much in its infancy. The totally green
building or green eco-city does not yet exist. There is still much theoretical work,
technical research and development, environmental studies and design interpretation
that needs to be done and tested before we can say we have achieved a green built
environment’ (p 158). The author considers five design strategies to achieve stasis
between the natural and built environments, the first of which focuses on green design
that comprises eco-infrastructures, including nature’s own utilities (green), engineer-
ing (grey), water management (blue), and the built environment (red). In addition,
the author addresses bio-integration (of synthetic and natural environments), eco-
mimesis (where design is inspired by ecosystems, like biomimicry), a restoration of
impaired environments, and self-monitoring eco-designs.

2.3 Governing Low Carbon Transitions

Societal and behavioural changes can help achieve low carbon futures. Small towns,
for example, deserve more attention than they have received so far, mainly due to the
emphasis on large cities and city regions (Mayer & Knox 2010). Four movements
have developed (local, organic and slow food, environmentalism, and entrepreneur-
ship and creativity) that could help to bring out smaller places. Behavioural change
is also expanded by Heiskanen et al. (2010) in the context of emerging low carbon
communities. Even though such practical examples exist, researchers have unravelled
that, at least for the London borough of Islington, pro-environmental attitudes and
behaviour already existed in participants in a Green Living Centre that did not nec-
essarily reflect upon other residents from the larger community, whose enthusiasm
for sustainability change and interest in such community schemes were more mixed
(Peters et al. 2010). It is suggested that this lack of interest could be counteracted
by awareness-raising efforts that extend to the greater community. Findings such as
these stress the need for social inclusion, particularly in community-based action to
low carbon cities. Hence, it may not be as easy as identifying green niches at the
policy level in order to encourage bottom-up (community action-based) governance
(Seyfang 2010), when some members of the community do not participate. Perhaps
one approach to encourage social participation in green initiatives could be achieved
through the provision of rewards, such as funding to consumers, as of decentralised
renewable energy systems (DRES) suggested by Williams (2010), who also argues
that it is the producers of DRES that need to be targeted, rather than just consumers,
and tightly regulated to install DRES, particularly in new housing developments.
But these issues of (the limits of) ‘organic’ governance bring us to consider-
ing the institutional structures governing change more generally. Despite the varied
2.3 Governing Low Carbon Transitions 15

bottom-up movements, it is rather clear that systematic change lies with the institu-
tional transformations driven by larger-scale actions and normative practices. Policies
of decarbonisation are usually perceived to be in the hands of national and interna-
tional institutions—although there has recently been a definite shift in international
policy discourse from a dominance of top-down to multilevel governance, where
the role of urban and regional institutions is often considered to be the key (Bulke-
ley 2009). Indeed, subnational and local governments can execute their authority
in regulatory and planning functions, local charges, procurement procedures, and
direct management of the public property. They not only translate national policy
and resources into implementing policies ‘on the ground’, but also present themselves
as an important vehicle for innovation in climate policy and practice.
An examination of implementing climate protection through urban planning for
development and energy conservation in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and transport plan-
ning in Cambridgeshire found that sustainability is shaped by governance that extends
across geographical scales and urban boundaries (Bulkeley & Betsill 2005). Coop-
eration between neighbouring municipalities is important because many initiatives
cross the borders of individual administrative units (e.g. infrastructural projects or
public transport). Here, the role of regional (subnational) administrations as coor-
dinating, enabling, and funding bodies cannot be overstated (Wheeler 2009). Cities
with a ‘regional’ administrative mandate, which is often the case for larger cities, are
more capable of facilitating larger projects and territorial cohesion (OECD 2010b).
It is not necessary, however, that city governments form only ‘local’ or ‘regional’
institutions. They can also create ‘horizontal’ national and international networks or
associations that complement the ‘vertical’ regimes of governance. Such interurban
associations provide a platform for sharing knowledge and for mutual support, and
climate protection measures advocated by these associations are often expressed in
agreements. An example is the 2007 World Mayors and Local Governments Cli-
mate Protection Agreement, which calls for a reduction in GHG emissions by 60%
from 1990 levels worldwide by 2050 and, in industrialised countries nationally, by
80% from 1990 levels. It also declares a number of commitments for the signatories
themselves, although without specific measurable targets.
Yet, long-term planning could be adopted towards a technology-explicit bottom-
up approach (Bhatt et al. 2010) that is community-led (rather than government-
led). The latter conveys a possible shifting in leadership from traditional routes.
Others have discovered that grassroots action has the potential of building community
capacity to accommodate low carbon practice that is place-specific (Middlemiss &
Parrish 2010).
Apart from the cooperation between cities and between different administrations,
city governments can seek a broader participation of stakeholders and the involve-
ment of the population in climate-related decision-making processes in order to
inform, and to be informed by, the local community’s knowledge about climate chal-
lenges (including information about existing impacts on residents) and to share the
ownership of new strategies with a larger group of stakeholders, thus, ensuring their
more successful implementation.
16 2 Low Carbon Cities

Participation and cooperation can also help to bring in missing technical exper-
tise. For example, universities represent an intellectual resource at the local level
that can, on the one hand, support city governments in developing energy-related
and carbon reduction policies and strategies and, on the other, play a key role in
building knowledge on climate smart practices through changes in curriculum and
teaching methods (World Bank 2010b). Indeed, a common approach in governance
is establishing a science-policy competence, whereby decision-makers and experts
come together to exchange information (Corfee-Morlot et al. 2011). For example,
urban energy systems should be approached from sociotechnical perspectives that
bring together experts in the sciences and social sciences, such as engineers (van
der Sanden & van Dam 2010). Research and development efforts can recognise this
contribution of multidisciplinary groups to be able to provide more diverse (holistic)
solutions. Since technology is not a panacea, it is necessary to include linked scien-
tific and social research that does not exclude the role of the individual, culture, and
society. This is especially relevant since social participation and consumption can be
driving forces of social change, which could affect the acceptance and adoption of
new technology.
Speaking of local-scale actions, it seems that key factors for effective climate
policy development and implementation in cities are collective public awareness
and individual political leadership (Golubchikov 2011). Because the combination
of these factors varies between different areas, there may be a large spectrum of
responses among cities even within the same subnational jurisdiction or in smaller
countries (e.g. for the case of Sweden, see Langlais 2009). Even those local gov-
ernments that demonstrate proactive strategies often face a lack of legal mandate
from national governments to implement advanced measures (OECD 2010b). This
may include, for example, limited regulatory and fiscal authority, and lack of control
over energy utilities or over strategic transportation development. In their strategies,
local governments often go beyond their legislated capacity, which raises concerns
over their effective implementation. Moreover, local responses to climate change
are often circumscribed by the fiscal capacities of municipalities or regions. Even if
substantial achievements can be reached with moderate cost, systematic and com-
prehensive climate policies are capital intensive. City governments need to identify
sustainable sources of income for these policies. Local fiscal and payment regimes
may themselves play a stimulating role to encourage or discourage certain activities,
projects, or lifestyles, and these may have serious implications for climate neutrality.
Some examples are public transport fees, parking fees, congestion charges, property
taxes, and development charges. Financial resources can also be sought from the
private sector; public-private partnerships may be established in order to share risk
and raise private finance for infrastructure and energy efficiency projects. In their
turn, national governments must ensure adequate resource mobilisation for local and
regional governments, as it is at the national level that different forms of taxes can
be institutionalised more comprehensively and effectively.
It is crucial that cities involve as many stakeholders as possible, including com-
munity and grassroots groups, academics, businesses, and activists, to promote a
broader acceptance of policies and support for their implementation. The problem
2.3 Governing Low Carbon Transitions 17

with eco-city approaches to LCD is that it may exclude low-income people, such
as those living in urban slums. It is important for these citizens to gain the ‘right to
the city’ through an avoidance of selective benefit-sharing, marginalisation, and dis-
crimination that is evident in today’s cities (UN-Habitat 2008). Cities in developing
countries have a notable problem of a divide between the rich and poor, resulting
in over 900 million people living in slums around the world (Antesberger et al.
2004). This is evident in megacities, such as São Paulo in Brazil. The poor occupy-
ing slums and squatter settlements in low-income countries often occupy risk-prone
areas that are vacant and available to establish makeshift residences. These areas are
commonly flood-prone, as for example in Indore, India and cities in Africa, such as
Accra, Kampala, Lagos, Maputo, and Nairobi (Satterthwaite et al. 2007). The most
effective upgrading programmes for slum and squatter settlements comprise local
(government) support and community-based adaptation, which includes protection
against extreme weather, and climate change by extension, as well as everyday haz-
ards (Satterthwaite et al. 2009). Good planning and governance of towns and cities
are important towards mitigation efforts and adaptation.
Many organic/grassroots movements advocate ‘simple living’ as a low-
consumption approach to an urban lifestyle (e.g. Thornbush et al. 2013). This
approach recognises that purchasing green (energy-efficient) products still con-
tributes to the carbon emissions associated with the demand for production. Simple
living entails buying what is necessary rather than in excess. This lifestyle, however,
is very difficult to achieve, especially when consumerism is spreading rapidly in
the world, causing hunger for energy production to fulfil several functions. The next
chapter focuses on energy generation and use within the context of energy transitions.

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Chapter 3
Energy-Based Transitions

Abstract The focus of this chapter is on reducing energy consumption in cities,

including through decarbonisation efforts and transitions as well as improved energy
efficiency. Continued investments in the production of renewable energy sources and
the transmission (or distribution) of green energy are needed in order to sustain a low
carbon supply as for instance in district heating and cooling (DHC) and as combined
heat and power (CHP) or cogeneration. In addition to investing in such technologies,
it is also pertinent to reduce energy consumption and promote energy conservation.
City challenges regarding emissions are addressed. It helps to have building standards
in place and building code guiding sustainable homes as well as effective planning
to direct development, even amid rapid development. Spatial planning has potential
when deployed alongside building control. Decisions regarding density building,
suburbs, and transport are vital to examine in the context of the New Urban Design
as well as sustainable development.

Keywords District heating and cooling (DHC) · Combined heat and power
(CHP) · Building code · Spatial planning · New urban design · New technologies ·
Sustainable development

Climate mitigation efforts have focused on the energy sector and transport sectors,
built environment and densification, and urban greenery. This reflects the efforts in
relation to both the supply and demand side of power. Specific attempts have been
made in the energy sector, on the supply side, to improve energy generation effi-
ciency, shifting to less carbon-intensive fuels, keeping electricity affordable, as well
as developing public and public partnerships. Hydroelectricity, wind, solar photo-
voltaic, solar thermal, geothermal, tide, and wave are all renewable types of energy
that do not involve direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (albeit there are indirect
emissions from building power installations). Biomass (wood, biofuels, waste) can
also be a carbon neutral source of energy if the burned biomass is renewed in a
sustainable way.
Many countries have made decarbonisation efforts, by increasingly using a greater
share of fuels with a reduced carbon content and technologies with fewer emis-
sions and generating a larger proportion of electricity and heat from non-fossil fuels.
According to IEA (2018) data, in Iceland for example, 83% of total primary energy
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 21
M. J. Thornbush and O. Golubchikov, Sustainable Urbanism
in Digital Transitions, SpringerBriefs in Geography,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25947-1_3
22 3 Energy-Based Transitions

supply (TPES) is derived from hydropower and geothermal power. Combined, these
two types of power provide for all of the country’s electricity needs (respectively,
75 and 25% of electricity generation). Geothermal power was found, in addition, to
be responsible for 94% of the country’s heat production. Under previous adminis-
trations, the USA formulated an extensive plan of decarbonisation that was based on
proven technology and distribution systems (e.g. Shinnar & Citro 2006). The plan
envisaged that in the next few decades, the USA would be switching to non-fossil
energy sources, including concentrated solar thermal (CST), nuclear, geothermal
and hydroelectric, wind, solar cells, and biomass energy. The plan did not include
a major programme of carbon sequestration because it was considered to be more
costly than CST and nuclear. Perhaps electricity is a suitable approach for infras-
tructure in a world currently in transition because it does not rely on the type of
energy source, whether it is renewable or not, and is already broadly in use. This
is advocated by Zerocarbonbritain2030 (ZCB2030) that proposes a future scenario,
where ‘[t]he roads and rails will buzz with the sound of power lines, batteries and
fuel cells’ (Kemp & Wexler 2010, p. 105).

3.1 Urban Energy Infrastructure

Globally, there is not only an increased interest in renewable energy sources, but
also in decentralised energy generation and distribution (Goodier & Rydin 2010).
The call for low carbon energy offers opportunities to shift from ‘large’ vertically
integrated energy industries to decentralised neighbourhood-scale generation, which
can be sufficient to cover all local needs. Increasing use of decentralised energy is
also a way to reduce energy transmission losses, since energy systems can be more
efficient when power lines to consumers are as direct as possible and the number of
transformation steps minimised. It is of course the city and regional levels that can
play a key role in decentralised energy. Even when the city government does not own
and operate power-generating facilities (although the opposite is often true), it can
use a number of levers to promote local green energy infrastructure. For example,
the city can purchase renewable energy for city operations; identify strategic sites
where renewable and low carbon energy sources could be located; provide planning
incentives and development land; permit the construction of only efficient and clean
power installations; and require new developments to connect to district heating
systems. In short, the following options are implemented at the city level for city-
scale decentralised renewable and low carbon power supply (Golubchikov 2011):
(a) Switching to lower-carbon technologies and promoting district heating and cool-
ing systems with cogeneration and tri-generation;
(b) Installing renewable power installations, e.g. wind turbines, solar farms, energy
from biomass and waste plants;
(c) Promoting onsite microgeneration of heat and electricity in the buildings sector;
(d) Developing a smart grid and efficient municipal energy services.
3.1 Urban Energy Infrastructure 23

The fuel mix used in power generation also matters. Increasing the share of gas in
energy supply has been promoted in many cities; indeed, natural gas contains 40–50%
less carbon than coal and 25–30% less carbon content than oil, only marginal quan-
tities of sulphur, and is more energy-rich and efficient. Power stations with modern
gas turbines can achieve 60–65% of conversion efficiency, but the most modern city-
based gas-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plant can reach efficiencies of more
than 90% at the point of end-use (due to lower losses from transmission, fewer con-
densation losses in boilers, and the close proximity to the consumers). It is evident
that a considerable amount of primary energy and carbon emissions can be saved
by the large-scale deployment of modern CHP plants. The CHP technology, which
is also known as cogeneration, can be used for both industrial and non-industrial
purposes and also at the micro (household) scale, but it is most advantageous if
connected to district heating (also known as community heating) and deployed at
a city- or neighbourhood-scale. In addition to satisfying local needs in heat, hot
water, and power, CHP plants can provide cooling, by chilled water (this is known
as tri-generation or as combined cooling, heat, and power).
Although district heating and CHP can function independently of each other,
district heating and cooling (DHC) with CHP is today one of the most proven,
efficient, and cheapest available technologies to reduce emissions and save energy
at the city level. District heating, in particular, is considered for deployment in areas
of high population densities with continuous demand. However, there are examples
of countries where even low-density areas are supplied by district heating. Countries
with significant shares of low-density, single-family houses connected to district
heating in 2003 were Iceland (85%), Denmark (48%), Finland (13%), and Sweden
(10%) (Nilsson et al. 2008). Remarkably, however, there is a strong opposition at the
community level against district heating in countries such as the UK, which lack an
appropriate tradition.
District heating and cooling can be designed as a flexible system, so that apart
from CHP, DHC networks can be supplied from a variety of other sources, including
geothermal and solar heating stations; fuel cells; biomass; surplus heat from indus-
tries; and energy from waste facilities. The ability to integrate diverse energy sources
may provide for a flexible platform to reduce dependency on a single source of supply
and to introduce competition into the supply chain. Similarly, CHP plants themselves
can work on different fuel mixes. A challenge for climate neutral policies is to drive
the whole energy infrastructure of district heating and CHP towards renewable sup-
ply; the anticipation of such a move should be integrated into the planning for new
installations. For example, such ‘future-proofing’ has been a priority for London
authorities planning for easy replacement or refuelling of new-build gas-powered
CHP with renewable fuel or hydrogen in the future (Jones 2009).
Apart from cogeneration, cities promote other forms of renewable energy sup-
ply, such as city-scale or neighbourhood-scale power installations and even smaller
(building-scale) microgeneration. Again, different sources of renewable energy are
used—geothermal; wind; solar; ocean; biomass; landfill gas; and waste-to-energy.
The small power generators can be linked to the common electricity grid and district
heating or, alternatively, supply electricity and heat directly to the consumer (such
24 3 Energy-Based Transitions

as stand-alone renewable power operating at distribution voltage level). The intro-

duction of electricity buy-back may promote renewable technologies in China, for
instance, under a distributed energy system employing CHP, biomass energy, and
photovoltaic technology (Ren et al. 2010). The city of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) has
included wind energy in its community energy plans to produce energy within its
municipal city boundaries. This scheme could generate between 8 and 29% of its total
electricity demand from a baseline in 2005 (McIntyre et al. 2011, p. 1445). These
trends will certainly affect the way cities are designed and planned. Microgeneration
or onsite renewable energy generation in the buildings sector—both by commercial
buildings and dwellings—is also increasingly promoted. Networked microgenera-
tion might even be sufficient to cover all local electricity and heat demand, given
that the final energy consumption is reduced through improving end-use efficiency.
Microgeneration can include different types of heat pumps; small CHP plants; solar
PV and thermal collectors; wood pellet stoves; small wind turbines; and other renew-
able technologies. For example, as part of the Hamburg Climate Action Policy for
2007–2012, Hamburg is carrying out a number of measures for the deployment of
solar roofs. To this end, about 150,000 roofs in Hamburg were examined to deter-
mine their potential for generating energy, including by using a laser scanner flight
programme, which measures both the direct and diffuse solar radiation potential of
roofs in the city (City of Hamburg 2011).
In short, energy policy could provide a means by which to target energy consump-
tion and the reduction of greenhouse gases or GHGs, as exemplified by Barcelona
and London that are in carbon lock-in and using urban planning policies towards low
carbon and renewable energy technologies in retrofitted and new buildings (Maassen
2010). One example is London’s use of onsite decentralised energy generation in
new developments. The project ‘Challenging lock-in through urban energy systems
(Clues)’, for instance, raised important questions relating to urban areas in the UK and
barriers to their energy systems, system decentralisation, aggregate decarbonisation
targets, and sustainability (Rydin et al. 2010).

3.2 The Built Environment

Since cities are typically seen to be the largest source of carbon emissions (Hunt et al.
2007), they need to be redesigned to reduce their emissions. This can be achieved
through strong legislation, especially building regulations, waste and water man-
agement as well as city planning, planned infrastructure changes, using the latest
building technology and alternative (renewable) energy, such as solar and wind inte-
grated into building design and retrofitted, local (in-city) power generation to reduce
loss of energy via transportation, city-specific plans particularly for developing coun-
tries, and possibly the eventual abandonment of unsustainable (or highly vulnerable)
cities.
There is no doubt that the built environment in particular poses a major challenge,
especially since it is responsible for emitting over a third of the world’s emissions and
3.2 The Built Environment 25

consumes about 40% of energy for residential and commercial buildings in Western
societies alone (James 2009, p. 52), releasing much carbon dioxide or CO2 into the
atmosphere. Ürge-Vorsatz et al. (2007) postulate that it is possible to reduce these
emissions by 30% (for a selection of best practices), having examined 60 policy
evaluation reports, representing at least 30 different countries across four different
continents. They discovered the most effective policy instruments in this sector to be
appliance standards, building codes, tax exemptions, and voluntary labelling, which
are found to be even more effective than Kyoto Protocol flexible mechanisms and
carbon taxation. In their overall assessment, the most cost-effective instruments (of
energy savings achieved with negative costs for society) are appliance standards,
demand-side management programmes, and mandatory labelling.
A report by PRP Architects et al. (2008) examines six exemplary places
with large-scale development situated from the city centre to suburbia. Namely
Adamstown (near Dublin, Ireland), Amersfoort (the Netherlands), Freiburg
(Germany), HafenCity (Hamburg, Germany), Kronsberg (Hanover, Germany),
and Hammarby Sjöstad (Stockholm, Sweden) were subject. In Freiburg, people are
using their cars less and either taking public transports or cycling. In terms of climate-
proofing, there was a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions in Kronsberg (p 18).
It is particularly beneficial for China’s rapid urban development that considerable
carbon emissions reduction can be gained from an approach that combines building
design and construction along with urban planning and building material industries
(Li et al. 2009). Even though China has adopted a low carbon economy (Jing et al.
2010), which is targeted to deploy clean energy, including renewable energy mainly
derived from small and large hydro power plants (Zhang et al. 2010), it experiences
barriers to carbon reduction, as in larger commercial buildings situated in Beijing and
Shanghai that cannot employ energy managers of a sufficient calibre (Jiang & Tovey
2010). A study conveys that even though there was progress in carbon reduction in
Chinese cities in the 1990s, this progress has slowed down or even reversed in recent
years (Dhakal 2009). Urban management in China is restricted by departmentalisa-
tion as well as poor information sharing and coordination, creating an information
isolation island problem (Wang & Cao 2010). Instead of investing in low carbon
technologies, such as deriving renewable energy from wind or carbon sequestration,
it was found that a better mitigation tool in terms of cost-effectiveness for China
could be the improvements in building energy efficiency, like in cities located in
northern China, such as Tianjin, which implemented building energy efficiency poli-
cies in its residential sector in the 1980s (Li et al. 2009). It has been postulated that
new urban construction in China should move towards low carbon eco-city status
(Li et al. 2010).
Other measures are suggested for existing buildings, for example Kelly (2009)
advocates that: building fabric could be reengineered; appliance efficiency could be
improved; electricity to homes could be decarbonised either through the grid or the
use of renewable sources of energy; and changes in personal behaviour could pro-
vide solutions. Even historic buildings can be retrofitted, as with the case of The
Hague’s technological configuration (Peltier 2009), which did not require any major
changes to its façade. Some European museums have adopted energy conservation
26 3 Energy-Based Transitions

techniques in their buildings in order to reduce energy consumption, including con-

siderations of indoor temperature (heating and cooling) as well as lighting and other
electrical devices (Zannis et al. 2006). It is possible to retrofit these non-domestic
buildings, as also shown for Bristol, UK in attempts to reduce the (financial) risks
associated with unsustainable buildings (Femenías & Fudge 2010). One of the most
cost-effective solutions is insulation retrofitting, particularly with the use of nano
insulation materials (Jelle et al. 2010).
A report by the Environmental Change Institute (Boardman et al. 2005), namely
40% House, was challenged by Power (2010), who opposes its proposal to achieve
reductions in CO2 emissions in building through the demolition of leaky homes. She
advocates that the proposal is based on unsupported assumptions, including that new
homes will have a better energy performance, and ignores both embodied energy
and waste generated in the new building as well as the energy costs of infrastruc-
ture. An approach that is more conserving and recycles materials is likely to be
more sustainable. For example, she suggests that ‘higher refurbishment standards
for existing homes using known methods (including under-floor and solid wall insu-
lation) offer better value and potentially greater gains more quickly and cheaply than
demolition and replacement buildings’ (p 214). Research by Thornbush and Viles
(2007) supports that old building stone, for example, is more stable and affected
less (in terms of material loss) than newly exposed surfaces. This could indicate
that there is some advantage to salvaging stone used in older constructions. More-
over, it is possible to improve existing building envelopes through measures taken
to doors and entrances, draught-proof, window films and glazing, natural ventila-
tion, solar shading, solar reflective surfaces, insulation, and green roofs (Rawlings
2010) as well as green walls. Using an optimum insulation thickness, for example,
was found to reduce CO2 emissions by 27% in Erzurum, one of Turkey’s coldest cities
(Çomakli & Yüksel 2004, p. 939).
Leaky homes can be improved with increased insulation, as also offered by vege-
tation. Green roofs integrate the positive effects of vegetation cover directly into the
buildings’ design. They reduce the over-heating of buildings in summer and provide
a better thermal insulation in winter, thus, improving the building’s own energy per-
formance in addition to the positive effects for the neighbourhood as a whole. For
example, traditional rooftops in North America and Central Europe can reach tem-
peratures as high as 90°C during the summer, but green roof temperatures stay below
50°C. This demonstrates that the difference in surface temperature between a green
roof and an unplanted roof can reach 40°C and more (Gartland 2008). A cooling
roof is also beneficial for solar panels, as they currently work best at temperatures up
to 25°C and have a reduced productivity at higher temperatures. Furthermore, green
roofs intercept stormwater runoff and reduce the load on the building’s drainage
system, thereby extending its maintenance cycle. There are interesting examples of
compulsory green roofs as posited by a recent by-law that requires the construc-
tion of green roofs on public and private buildings in the City of Toronto (Ontario,
Canada). In Chicago (USA), government buildings require green roofs and cities in
Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, following the original experiences of Basel and
Linz, have introduced either compulsory requirements for greening all flat roofs on
3.2 The Built Environment 27

new buildings or additional subsidies for such measures for existing roofs (Gol-
ubchikov 2011).
This approach has the added benefit of urban greening, which will help to absorb
atmospheric CO2 through carbon capture by green façades and roofs in addition to
other green spaces. Forests, for example, have been promoted as carbon sinks for
low carbon cities (Jiang et al. 2010). They are believed to be an important strategy
in global warming mitigation, moving towards the reduction in emissions associated
with deforestation and degradation and the improvement of forest management and
afforestation. This approach of urban greening has been recently extended to include
urban agriculture (e.g., Thornbush 2015), such as food projects (Hopkins 2010).
Living walls adopted in office buildings could also improve the quality of indoor
circulated air and, hence, human health. Besides capturing CO2 gas, plants are also
capable of trapping particulate matter, which could reduce the incidence of human
cancer in cities due to the inhalation of black carbon particulate.

3.3 Spatial Planning, Urban Density, and Mobility

Today, spatial planning in its various manifestations—regional and urban planning,

land use zoning—finds itself right at the heart of adaptation and mitigation measures.
Indeed, urban layout, public transit provision, and integrated district heat-electricity
systems are some of the planning considerations that have long been acknowledged
among the principal instruments to reduce urban energy intensity (e.g. Owens 1986).
Planning is also instrumental in identifying risk-prone zones and providing spatial
strategies to safeguard urban infrastructure. What is no less important is that planning
decisions on land use and urban layout have impacts lasting for decades and even
centuries. Particular land use and infrastructural patterns create the circles of ‘path
dependence’, when future investments are predetermined by existing infrastructure,
in this case, which may lock economies into particular lifestyles and patterns. Spa-
tial planning is important to prevent being locked into high-carbon or hazard-prone
conditions that would be expensive or impossible to alter later (World Bank 2008).
Spatial planning is relevant to all sectors of the urban economy and is principal
for the integration of different sectors and urban systems into a consolidated spatial
strategy (Rydin 2010). It is often the case, however, that links between territorial plans
and climate policies are weak. This is because climate policies are often focused on
particular economic sectors and may disregard spatial relations between and within
urban sectors as well as the importance of how urban space is organised (OECD
2010). A purposeful integration of planning with policies for climate-smart growth
is currently promoted in the context of climate change strategies.
Building control is a powerful tool to complement planning. Contrary to
spatial planning itself, which may be opposed by some political ideologies as ‘exces-
sive’ public interference (and, therefore, being limited in certain regions), building
control is more easily accepted as a regulatory regime (this has been the case for
the USA and some post-socialist countries; see Golubchikov 2004; Stanilov 2007).
28 3 Energy-Based Transitions

Building control may also ensure the presence of planning targets in actual construc-
tion practice, including in the private sector. Legal provisions can be established such
as those, for example, which require that building permits are only issued for projects
that are optimised spatially to reduce energy demand, including density and transport
considerations; taking advantage of natural heating, cooling, lighting, and shading
potentials; and that incorporate building materials and other means for reducing
urban heat island effects (e.g. cool walls, roofs and paving, increasing green areas).
Moreover, urban development projects should be subject to a holistic assessment
with regard to their environmental standards, which means that the full lifecycles
of buildings (all stages from the manufacturing of construction materials to demoli-
tion and recycling of materials) are optimised in order to reduce the overall carbon
Footprint.
Studies have found that multi-model land use and transportation design in plan-
ning for building improvements can reduce emissions; higher-density building is
also important; energy efficiency can be achieved across a variety of building types;
and affordable housing near work should reduce commuting costs (Condon et al.
2009). Research performed in the City of Toronto (Ontario, Canada) has broadly
shown that urban form and density are important considerations (Norman et al.
2006). Policies that reduce operational energy and high-density development nearer
to places of employment as well as increase the use of public transport and reduce
private vehicle use in the suburbs should be given priority. Alternative fuels and
renewable energy should be adopted in order to reduce transportation and opera-
tional energy use and GHG emissions from residential development. A study for the
Chicago (USA) metropolitan area (Lindsey et al. 2011) has found that vehicle miles
of travel, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions from privately-owned vehicles
are augmented with distance from the central business district, but reduced with
residential density. This research suggests that high-efficiency vehicles may help to
reduce emissions in cases of urban sprawl.
A modern approach to urban planning is the so-called New Urbanist design,
which provides an alternative to conventional low-density development (Stevens
et al. 2010). Steemers (2003), for instance, sees the benefits of a compact design
for cities and towns with integrated public transport. Increased density is a part of
this approach, which could use green standards at a lower cost (HTA et al. 2007).
Some urban systems depend on achieving a critical density based on the mass of
dwellings, such as the effective deployment of combined cooling heating power
(CCHP) systems. Moreover, a sufficient volume of development would allow energy
companies to support low carbon energy technologies that employ renewable sources
of energy (wind, solar, woodchip, etc.). This combined with an integrated energy
strategy, which includes a green transport plan, would go a long way to promote a
low carbon lifestyle. For example, Power (2010, p. 206) specifies a home density of
at least 50 homes per hectare, comprising some 110 people, over the current planning
standard of 30 homes per hectare in order to maintain public transport (a regular bus
service) as well as shops and schools in towns.
Many authors have also advocated such an approach towards sustainable devel-
opment, where urban growth that is balanced, compact, and coordinated is geared
3.3 Spatial Planning, Urban Density, and Mobility 29

towards achieving economic, social, and environmental benefits (Nadin 2006); as

well as being aligned with the planning and decision-making process involving
sociocultural, juridical, aesthetical, and ethical aspects (Vandevyvere & Stremke
2012). This can be attained through a more polycentric pattern in cities and towns
and the prevention of urban sprawl. Urban planning needs to consider the size of
the city and any associated characteristics of its residents. At a certain level of den-
sity, the negative environmental, energy, climate, and sociophysiological impacts
start outweighing the gains. Super density also amplifies the negative effects of cli-
mate on cities—especially in areas with a high concentration of tall buildings (Roaf
et al. 2009). Larger cities normally have larger surrounding areas and involve more
long-distance travel, so that people’s travel performance is connected to a country’s
spatial-economic organisation (Perrels 2008). For example, in Finland, medium-
sized cities (of around 100,000 inhabitants) have the strongest mitigating effect on
transport performance.
There is no consensus on what the optimal level of urban density actually is, nor on
whether higher densities should always be encouraged. Moreover, key problems for
intensified densities and the ‘compact city’ are that many cities already differ from an
‘optimal’ density and that the habits and aspirations of a considerable portion of the
population are based on low-density models. There is, however, a broader consensus
about the harmful effect of sprawl and the benefits of mixed-use development. The
latter generally includes integrating housing, work, facilities, and entertainment in
close proximity so that both trip distances and car dependence are reduced. Mixed-use
development may also be accomplished in lower-density townscapes, so that existing
low-density areas can be transformed towards mixed-use development, based on a
strategy of stimulating urban polycentricity.
One case-in-point is the suburb. It is argued that measures associated with a
compact city design have not been explicitly geared towards suburban areas, which
have their own unique challenges in this transformation towards low or zero-carbon
cities, including a slow pace of change (Williams et al. 2010). The built environment
in the suburbs is also challenged by other problems revolving around the retrofitting
of existing houses and fragmented property ownership and management. This was
addressed by Rice (2010), who examines retrofitting existing suburbs towards sus-
tainable urbanism using a compact city strategy that is promoted by the government
of the UK. His analysis reveals that it is both feasible to retrofit the suburbs and that
this endeavour is locally viable. It can even, in some cases, encourage more sustain-
able lifestyles, amongst them improved accessibility as well as social inclusion and
even physical and mental health benefits.
There is also a broad consensus in the literature that public transport is a crucial
consideration to curb emissions from travel. Developing countries, including China
and India, are investing in public transport, such as city bus fleets that use alternative
fuel in China (Ou et al. 2010). Indian cities such as Mumbai, with a higher share of
public bus transport and suburban rail, has experienced a 60% reduction in energy
and emissions compared to other cities like Delhi (Das & Parikh 2004), where future
emissions (by 2020) are expected to be controlled by the adoption of efficient vehicles
and fuels. The use of public transport (mass transit systems), rather than private
30 3 Energy-Based Transitions

passenger vehicles, can lead to energy savings in the transport sector for Bangkok
due to less of an energy demand as well as reduced local air pollution, including
carbon emissions (Phdungsilp 2010).
In addition to developing public transport and non-motorised transport infrastruc-
ture, transportation demand management includes optimising traffic flows. Improv-
ing the state of the road infrastructure and providing intelligent transportation system
(i.e. using various forms of information and communication technologies for real-
time information exchange between vehicles and road infrastructure) can reduce
traffic bottlenecks and divert traffic from inner city areas. In this way, it helps to
alleviate congestion and attendant air pollution, additional GHG emissions, and time
losses. Speed limits can also be used, as high speeds lead to higher fuel combustion
and, hence, amplified CO2 emissions. Important options, which encourage modal
shifts and rationalise transport flows, also include road pricing and car parking poli-
cies; congestion pricing tolls; park-and-ride facilities; ridesharing and car clubs; and
travel planning. The promotion of remote forms of doing business and acquiring
services (such as IT-based) in order to alleviate dependencies on traffic loads is also
an important strategy.
Transport needs to undergo considerable change to accommodate the increasing
number of city-dwellers and reduce reliance on private vehicles. There is an interest-
ing trend, for example, of adopting aerial ropeways for urban transport. Many cities
have such urban endeavours underway, including metro cables in Medellin and Cara-
cas, Algeria’s aerial ropeway serving the cities of Skikda and Tlecern, which is linked
to their transit systems, and the new gondola system in Koblenz (UN-Habitat 2010).
These aerial ropeways use less material and energy and are non-polluting. They have
a small Ecological Footprint and are among the world’s safest and most sustainable
modes of transport. A relatively recent initiative by Google is to develop technology
for self-driving vehicles (automated cars) that rely on video cameras, radar sensors,
and lasers along with roadmaps to navigate through traffic. This could stimulate
improved navigation, such as the shortest possible route taken in a single road trip as
well as reduce road accidents.
Hydrogen is suggested as a sustainable transport fuel. For instance, Hart (2003)
discusses a shift from transport energy derived from the burning of fossil fuels
to hydrogen that is produced from renewable resources. According to him, this
would reduce GHG emissions to zero and improve air quality, and even diminish
noise pollution associated with the internal combustion engine. However, hydrogen
energy infrastructure—the hydrogen road—implemented in Norway between Oslo
and Stavanger, was affected by problems stemming from user technology, whereby
sociotechnical networks failed usually due to technological immaturity (Kårstein
2010).
A need for a sociotechnical understanding of domestic consumption behaviour
(particularly of the systems, standards, and norms that shape consumption) has been
reinforced by others like Moloney et al. (2010), who analysed local carbon neutral
community programmes in Australia. There is a business model for increasing the
presence of electric vehicles (EVs) in private transport through an Electric Recharge
Grid Operator that comes in advance of EVs in an intelligent rechargeable network
3.3 Spatial Planning, Urban Density, and Mobility 31

that is based on renewable energy (Andersen et al. 2009). Some countries have
already introduced this model, including Israel, Denmark, Australia, and the USA;
it is in-line with a long-term goal for the automotive industry of zero emissions and
a nil reliance on hydrocarbons for fuel (Sveum et al. 2007).
New technologies, however, are not a panacea. Satterthwaite (2011) argues that
high standards of living can be achieved in cities with low GHG emissions through
reduced resource use and waste, including lower material standards for the wealthy.
In other words, adopting new (more energy-efficient) technologies is a consumerist
approach to the problem, which could also be remedied by an alternative approach
of reduced consumption. This would call for behavioural change, which could be
reached at a lower cost. Such a non-consumerist approach could be useful, par-
ticularly for developing nations that cannot afford new technology and infrastruc-
ture. From the viewpoint of transport, changing people’s travel habits from being
convenience-oriented to low carbon-oriented could improve energy conservation
based on behavioural change (Zhao & Chu 2009). Behavioural change can be estab-
lished through policy, as through the provision of sustainable transport in order to
reduce dependence on petroleum (Chapman 2007).

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Chapter 4
Becoming Smart

Abstract Based on the strategies of smart cities from around the world, an initial
study and results are relayed here based on a sample of 30 cities. Subsequently, more
case studies were added to the roster representing 50 strategies. A selection of 10
studies was then identified for a more in-depth focus on actually existing case studies.
This chapter conveys a diversity of cases based on actually existing plans for smart
development based on smart strategies. In this way, it is possible to pinpoint ‘actually
existing smart cities’ from around the world. Inherent in the unique cases is a sense
of the disparate priorities evident in smart strategies and cases contingent on their
location.

Keywords Actually existing smart cities · Smart strategies · Case studies/cases ·

Roster

In the second portion of this brief, the focus will be on actually existing smart
cities and how they convey a progression from low carbon transitions—advocating
reduced resource consumption and waste—to become smart cities. The aim is to
identify actually existing case studies from around the world (in both developed and
developing countries) based on a foreseen total of 50 case studies, with 10 in-depth
examples following from others, such as Anthopoulos (2017). A case study roster
containing information of city projects, including year, rationale, objectives, and
website address was developed to inform the analysis based on strategic reports and
website content, plus publications. In particular, the authors were interested in self-
defined smart city ‘strategies’, which varied based on divergent approaches evident
in actually existing smart cities.
An initial analysis based on 30 cities already revealed some trends (denoted in
square brackets under cities in Table 4.1). The trends convey a concentration of
smart city strategies or plans in Europe and Asia, followed by North America, then
the developing world that includes countries in South America and Africa. Australia
(and Oceania) had the lowest count among all continents (similar to Lee & Hancock
2012, conveyed in square brackets for comparison under continents), with South
America also having the lowest count among the 30 strategies identified in the initial
study.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 35

M. J. Thornbush and O. Golubchikov, Sustainable Urbanism
in Digital Transitions, SpringerBriefs in Geography,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25947-1_4
36 4 Becoming Smart

Table 4.1 Initial findings based on a sample of 30 cities compared with Lee and Hancock (2012;
summarised in the continents column) based on 143 smart green city projects
Continents Cities Years
Asia [40]—Lee and Hancock (2012) Dubai (UAE), Hong Kong (China), 2011–2014
Pune (India), Seoul (South Korea),
Singapore, Taipei (Taiwan), Tel Aviv
(Israel), Yinchuan (China) [8]
North America [35] Boston (USA), Chicago (USA), 2010–2015
Edmonton Canada), New York (USA),
Washington, DC (USA) [5]
Europe [47] Barcelona (Spain), Bologna (Italy), 2008–2020
Eindhoven (Netherlands), Gothenburg
(Sweden), Lisbon (Portugal),
Manchester (UK), Milan (Italy), Milton
Keynes (UK), Moscow (Russia), Rijeka
(Croatia), Stockholm (Sweden),
Tampere (Finland), Vienna (Austria)
[13]
South America [11] Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) [1] 2010–2016
Middle East and Africa [10] South Africa (e.g., Cape Town) [2] 2000–2014
Australia (Oceania) [7] Melbourne (Australia) [1] 2001–2004

In addition to the spatiality of the strategies for smart development, there is a

temporal framework apparent that follows the results by Lee and Hancock (2012).
The earliest strategies appeared from the 2000s, as for example 2008 for Europe
(Tampere, Finland) and 2011 for Asia (Seoul, South Korea), which are emboldened
in Table 4.1. It is, therefore, not surprising that most smart cities are located on
the European continent, followed by Asia, given that these have had the longest
investment in smart development. Consequently, there are currently more smart cities
located in the Global North than in the Global South. Among developed countries,
clusters appear in North America (east coast) and Europe.
These findings from the initial analysis support the results by Lee and Hancock
(2012), based on 143 cities, noted in Table 4.1. Their research notes the following
aims of smart cities: ‘… to implement smart technologies to address and resolve
such urban problems such as energy shortages, traffic congestion, inadequate urban
infrastructure, and some issues in health and education. In particular, the European
Union (EU) is investing in smart city strategies for metropolitan city regions such
as Barcelona, Amsterdam, Berlin, Manchester, Edinburgh and Bath’. City regions
add to observations made earlier (in Chap. 1) regarding scale-wise growth, spreading
from the city-scale to embrace entire regions and beyond.
Frost and Sullivan (2013; also Glasmeier & Christopherson 2015 for the prop-
agation of the concept since the 1980s) relay research on smart city projects and
initiatives. Based on key parallels across these schemes, eight key aspects of the
smart city were identified and used to define it, which included: smart governance
and education, healthcare, building, mobility, infrastructure, technology, energy, and
4 Becoming Smart 37

Table 4.2 Global smart cities (26) by 2025 according to Frost and Sullivan (2013)
Country/continent City
Canada (3) Vancouver+ , Calgary, Toronto+
United States (5 + 2* ) Seattle+ , San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego* , Chicago, Boston* ,
New York+
Europe (10 + 2* ) Glasgow* , London (UK)+ ; Barcelona (Spain)+ ; Amsterdam (the
Netherlands)+ ; Luxembourg* ; Vienna (Austria)+ ; Berlin (Germany)+ ;
Copenhagen (Denmark); Oslo (Norway)+ ; Stockholm (Sweden)+ ;
Helsinki (Finland)+
Africa (0 + 1* ) Johannesburg* (South Africa)
Asia (7 + 3* ) Delhi* (India); Chengdu* , Wuhan, Shenzhen, Beijing, Tianjin
(China); Seoul (South Korea)+ ; Tokyo (Japan); Singapore
(Singapore)+ ; Jakarta* (Indonesia)
Australia (1) Sydney+
* Represents (8) small-scale projects and/or specific initiatives not included in their projected 26
global smart cities
+ Indicate overlap with cities included in the roster of the current study

citizen. The firm narrowed its definition to encompass five out of the eight smart
parameters, as none existed (at the time) that had all eight attributes. Those that did
not have at least five of the parameters were considered to be ‘eco-friendly’ cities,
as for example, Nice, France. Furthermore, projects that were too small because
they were single developments and did not entail entire cities (e.g. Masdar City, also
Song Do in South Korean, PlanIT in Portugal; Glasmeier & Christopherson 2015;
also relayed as two pilots, relevant for technological learning and societal embed-
ding from a sociotechnical perspective; Carvalho 2015) were also excluded from
their classification. It was estimated that by 2025 there would be in existence at least
26 global smart cities—that had at least five of his eight parameters—actually in
existence. Of these, half were expected to be located in Europe and North America.
All of these cities would be different, emphasising some parameters over others—
for example, Amsterdam was expected to execute projects in governance, mobility,
energy, and so on, with funding coming from the Amsterdam City Project, including
city government and private participants as well as the EU. It was also projected
that cities such as in Spain would have sufficiently large GDPs to contribute to a
smart city market of c. $1.5 trillion (globally) to affect various sectors, including
governance, healthcare, building, transportation, infrastructure, and energy (Frost &
Sullivan 2013). Smart cities projected to be included for 2025 are listed in Table 4.2.
Finally, the firm recognised four main key players in the smart city, including integra-
tors (platforms), network service providers (collaborative networks, data analytics,
enterprise), pure-play product vendors (hard assets, e.g. smart metres, distribution
devices, etc.), and managed service providers (monitoring, management, consulting).
Although most of such surveys for smart cities rely on authors’ preconceptions
on where to search for—and consequently where to find—the evidence of emerging
smart cities and, while they also tend to be biased to larger cities and those regions
38 4 Becoming Smart

and cities that have articulated their ambitions in the English language, we believe
that these results, with a degree of approximation, are still indicative of the trend of
greater representation of smart cities in developed countries (in the Global North).
Taking this proviso above seriously, it is still interesting to consider Juniper
Research (2018; on behalf of Intel—a technology company-based in Silicon Val-
ley, for research performed in 2015) that identified the 20 smartest or ‘cleverest’
cities. This ranking was established based on various variables, including cost of
living, liveability, career opportunities, pollution, crime, and more, facilitated by
digital technology (connected technology, including sensor, meters, lights, and so
on to collect and analyse data to improve public infrastructure and services), shared
knowledge, and social cohesivity—measured through mobility, public safety, health,
and productivity. According to this market research organisation, the following rank
was derived for its Smart City Index 2017 of 20 cities—some (*) overlapping with
the research roster in the initial study:
1. Singapore, Singapore*
2. London, UK*
3. New York, USA*
4. San Francisco, USA
5. Chicago, USA
6. Seoul, South Korea*
7. Berlin, Germany*
8. Tokyo, Japan
9. Barcelona, Spain*
10. Melbourne, Australia*
11. Dubai, UAE*
12. Portland, USA
13. Nice, France
14. San Diego, USA
15. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil*
16. Mexico City, Mexico
17. Wuxi, China
18. Yinchuan, China
19. Bhubaneswar, India
20. Hangzhou, China
These cities are argued in the report to be able to ‘give back’ 125 hours per year
to every resident, saving them time. Across four key areas (mobility, healthcare,
public safety, productivity), these smart cities increase time savings as well as pro-
ductivity and overall quality of life, increased health, and a safer environment in
which to live (Juniper Research 2018). The research has revealed that an Internet of
Things/IoT-integrated infrastructure based on intelligent traffic systems, for exam-
ple, with directed parking, frictionless toll and parking payments, and safer roads,
can itself ‘give back’ up to 60 hours per year because road congestion and gridlock
create inefficiency in mobility.
4 Becoming Smart 39

Public transportation is indeed a key service in cities, with the capability of con-
necting citizens to an intelligent management strategy (e.g. Ramaswami et al. 2016).
According to them, infrastructure capable of extending beyond the local to embrace
transboundary scales is essential for the reach of smart cities. New York City, for
example, is well-positioned because of its extensive public transportation system
that has a high ridership, with 54% of commuters taking public transit (including
bus/trolley bus, streetcar/trolley car, subway, railroad, ferryboat; Loo et al. 2010,
based on The American Community Survey 2005 retrieved on 10 November 2008
from http://www.census.gov/acs/www/). Bike-sharing systems have been deployed
in New York City (Noland et al. 2016), with findings suggesting that the place-
ment of bikeshare stations is crucial—so that, when placed near busy locations (e.g.
subway stations) and where there is bicycle infrastructure, there is greater use of
such schemes. Furthermore, population size and employment also affect usage, with
residential population representing more trips throughout the week, especially on
non-working days.
New technologies are deployed, including Apps, that enable connectivity—as
through IoT that connects devices over the Internet—and ease of usage/access, as
through automated fare collection and vehicle location systems to plan journeys (Liu
et al. 2017). According to these authors, the three pillars on which smart cities rest
are data mining technology, IoT, and mobile wireless networks.
It is interesting to observe that many—a quarter—of the listed cities are based
in the USA (New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, San Diego—comprise
five of the 20 listed cities). Following this, European countries (the UK, Germany,
Spain, France) and China (Wuxi, Yinchuan, Hangzhou) have the greatest number of
cities represented in the ranking. Singly-represented cities are from the remaining
countries, including Singapore (ranked first in the world), South Korea for Seoul,
Japan for Tokyo, UAE for Dubai, Brazil for Rio de Janeiro, Mexico for Mexico
City, and India for Bhubaneswar. Only three countries (Singapore, Australia, Brazil)
located in the Global South are included in this ranking, with the remaining majority
of smart cities coming from developed countries located in the Global North. African
countries, for instance, are not represented in such research. Again, this probably
also indicates a problem with methodology, where only available and self-promoted
resources from cities become part of such rankings’ consideration.
In our search, we wanted to be more inclusive and yet focused. However, we were
also linguistically-constrained and relied on the Internet as a source for information.
In what follows, we present a detailed overview of 10 cities selected based on their
smart strategy. There is a significant overlap with these ranked cities and those chosen
as detailed cases in this brief.

4.1 Strategies Roster

The roster of strategies compiled for this research identifies a ‘strategy’ as a city plan
for smart development. This is broadly defined and includes projects and initiatives
40 4 Becoming Smart

across sectors as well as (mayoral) strategies available online in English in PDF

format from various websites, some pertaining to specific smart city strategies. An
initial dataset of case studies was compiled that considered a variety of projects,
including year(s) of operation, purpose or rationale, and website for reference.
A summary of roster themes/attributes—based on a comparison of priorities and
initiatives—appears in Table 4.3. It considers fewer than 100 cities, as deployed by
others like Broto and Bulkeley (2013) for a database encompassing five key sectors
(urban infrastructure, built environment, transport, carbon sequestration, urban form)
of climate change mitigation. However, the current selection of 50 represents actually
existing smart cities—based on English online PDFs of smart strategies available for
each city. Shelton et al. (2015) similarly advocate the ‘actually existing smart city’ as
opposed to paradigmatic smart cities (e.g. Songdo, Masdar, Living PlanIT Valley).
They opt to focus on cases in Louisville and Philadelphia in the USA from where to
consider the impacts of policies on actual cities around the world.

Table 4.3 Summary of smart strategy themes/attributes based on roster information

Common themes Unique attributes
Accessibility, e.g. elderly/computer literacy; Commercialisation—Edmonton
Open Access
Autonomous vehicles Commodification—Toronto
Cost reduction Democratic right/data protection—Berlin
Digital government and services Dual use, e.g. lamp posts and electric vehicle
(EV) charging—Leipzig
Digital inclusion/bridging digital divide eHealth services—London (NHS)
Ecology/environment; reduce carbon dioxide Footprint—Stockholm
(CO2 ) emissions
Efficiency Hackathons—Melbourne
Energy/energy grids/electric vehicles Happy citizens and well-being—Dubai, Hong
(EVs)/green energy/renewable energy use Kong
Interconnectedness, e.g. free Wi-Fi, platforms Hubs—Leipzig, Milton Keynes, Taiwan
Mayor-led strategies—e.g. London Low-cost—Pune, Stockholm, Tel Aviv
Partnerships/collaborations, e.g. Retrofitting—Oslo
academics/universities; citizen-centred
partnerships
Shared services and information, e.g. Structures, e.g. shelters, meltways,
bikeshares, Big Data etc.—Toronto
Spur economy Tech-first approach—Chicago
Start-ups and entrepreneurship Tube system of waste disposal—Songdo
Sustainability Unified/interdisciplinary approach/holistic
perspective—Dallas, Heraklion, Lisbon
– Urban greening and farming—South Korea
– Vulnerable, e.g. elderly—Tshwane
4.1 Strategies Roster 41

Based on Table 4.3, it is evident that many actually existing smart cities denote
unique attributes in their strategies, with some examples provided in the table for
illustration (they are, of course, by far not all-encompassing). On the other hand,
common themes also emerged from the roster of 50 cities from around the world in
this study, conveying priorities and initiatives concerning accessibility, reduced cost,
improved services, inclusion, improved environment, energy efficiency, renewable
energy, shared services and information, aims to kickstart or spur the economy—as
through innovation and business start-ups/entrepreneurship, and an emphasis on (up
to nine, but commonly five or six) components of sustainability (social, economic,
environmental, etc. as pillars).

4.2 Detailed Cases

Detailed contemporary and known case studies outline smart strategies for a selection
of 10 ‘actually existing’ cases of smart cities and initiatives. This information is
contained in Table 4.4. Authors, such as Carvalho (2015), have already adopted a
case study approach to compare advancements in smart cities—as for instance his
comparison of Songdo (Incheon, South Korea) as the ubiquitous-city or ‘u-city’ to
test new technologies and PlanIT Valley in Portugal as the ‘city with a brain’ and
with a research and development/R&D focus (Paredes, 30 km from Porto) from
a sociotechnical perspective. As outlined by the author, the former was built up
from land that was reclaimed from the sea and in the latter case on a greenfield site
(see his Table 1, p 49). Both smart cities have operating systems, but with different
providers (e.g. Cisco for Songdo), and a central operation centre for Songdo versus
an Urban Operating System deployed in PlanIT Valley (along with sensors and
urban Apps). Whereas both local and national government drove Songdo, PlanIT
Valley was constructed by an IT company (Living PlanIT), with local and national
governments supporting the initiative. Evidently, smart cities vary in their drivers,
and it is important to examine the rationale of the strategies in place to develop them.
The 10 smart cities with coherent strategies are detailed in Table 4.4.
As noted by Odendaal (2006), one of the main challenges limiting smart city
development is overcoming the digital divide. In Cape Town (South Africa), for
instance, a digital divide assessment identified technical access, education and train-
ing, affordability, and sociocultural factors as constraining smart cities. These fac-
tors are surely issues affecting other, particularly low-income, countries. In the case
studies presented in Table 4.4, it is evident that developing countries are severely
under-represented, indicating that they do not have developed strategies in place for
smart city development (or at least that these strategies are not widely available to the
public). Lee and Hancock (2012), for instance, identify 143 smart green city projects
already in existence before 2013, among them 35 in North America, 11 in South
America, 47 in Europe, 40 in Asia, and 10 in the Middle East and Africa (plus seven
in Australia and Oceania). So, there is an abundance of smart city development
among European cities, and this is reflected in the literature as well as the roster
presented here.
42 4 Becoming Smart

Table 4.4 Detailed case studies of a selection of 10 cities with recent or known smart strategies
(listed alphabetically by city)
City (Country), year(s)—strategy Case highlights
details
Berlin (Germany), 2015 to – Six areas of action: smart administration and urban
2030—Smart City Strategy Berlin. society, housing, economy, mobility, infrastructure,
Available from: https://www. and public safety—latter is the most relevant to
berlin-partner.de/fileadmin/user_ citizenship; also recognises public democratic right to
upload/01_chefredaktion/02_pdf/ data protection
02_navi/21/Strategie_Smart_City_ – Adopts an integrated (ecological, social, economic,
Berlin_en.pdf cultural) approach to finding solutions to challenges,
involving actors from politics, business, science,
administration, and urban society
Brussels (Belgium), 2014 to – Five dimensions to digital society and economy:
2019—The Brussels Smart City connectivity, human capital, Internet use and the
Strategy. Available from: https:// digital divide, more effective public services—opening
s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/ up data (Open Access) and data analysis (Big Data),
expopolis-scve/Fair1/ and digital public services
TheBrusselsSmartCitystrategy.pdf – Sustainable development responding to ecological
issues, including a governance model advocating
participation and collaboration; digital inclusion
Cape Town (South Africa), 2001 to – Five pillars: leadership in technology policy and
2005—Cape Town’s “Smart City” strategy, economic and social development, digital
Strategy in South Africa. Available democracy, more efficient and effective local
from: http://unpan1.un.org/ government—with reduced transaction costs, and
intradoc/groups/public/documents/ anytime-anywhere citizen services
cpsi/unpan033820.pdf – Vision where citizens are connected to each other and
the world; residents have access to ICT, having the
skills to use it, bridging the digital divide
Columbus (Ohio, USA), 2012 to – Approaches’ challenges by embracing existing
2050—Columbus Smart City infrastructure, networks, and data. Facing issues of an
Application. Available from: ageing population, youthful urban areas, mobility
https://www.eenews.net/assets/ challenges, and a growing economy and
2016/03/31/document_pm_02.pdf population—that has housing, commercial, and
passenger/freight, and environmental issues
– Five strategies: access to jobs, smart logistics,
connected visitors, connected citizens, and sustainable
transportation
– Vision for beautiful, healthy, and prosperous city.
Major and public/private cooperation through
Columbus Partnership
Edmonton (Alberta, Canada), – Six 10-year strategic goals based on the main streams
2009 to 2040— Smart City of resiliency, liveability, and workability
Strategy 2017. Available from: – Aims to increase funding to local health and accelerate
https://www.edmonton.ca/city_ commercialisation of new technologies and products;
government/documents/PDF/ also smart transportation
Smart_City_Strategy.pdf – The Way Ahead—based on citizen-built vision,
including efforts to deliver the greatest value of
services and infrastructure
(continued)
4.2 Detailed Cases 43

Table 4.4 (continued)

City (Country), year(s)—strategy Case highlights
details
Milano (Italy), 2015 to – Aims to achieve energy smartness at the city level to
2020—Guidelines—Milano Smart reach CO2 reduction target by 2020
City. Available from: http://www. – Ten targets: deploy smart city solutions and accelerate
milanosmartcity.org/joomla/ their uptake, innovative models, external investment,
images/sampledata/programma/ energy-efficient districts, local renewable energy
SmartCity/milano%20smart% sources, new models of e-mobility, engage with
20city%20-%20guidelines.pdf citizens, exploit city data, and foster innovation locally
for the creation of new businesses and jobs
Milton Keynes (England, UK), – Ambitions to becoming an energy-efficient city, with
2014 to 2017—http://www. reduced carbon emissions. Has installations, e.g.
mksmart.org/: https://www.milton- Falcon smart grid, EV charging infrastructure, and
keynes.gov.uk/assets/attach/51579/ district heating system
Milton%20Keynes%20Digital% – MK: Smart has two main goals: innovative energy
20Strategy%202018-2025.pdf services based on the capabilities of MK Data Hub and
MK Digital Strategy 2018–2025 by demonstrate its business value to the energy sector
Milton Keynes Council. Available – Exploring ways to manage water, energy, and
from: https://www.milton-keynes. transport—in this fast-growing city—using Big Data
gov.uk/assets/attach/51579/ – MK Digital Strategy prioritises digital connectivity,
Milton%20Keynes%20Digital% services, and economy; aspires to be collaborative,
20Strategy%202018-2025.pdf innovative, and inclusive—e.g. improving access
Moscow (Russia), 2018 to – Mission seeks to improve city environment, create a
2030—‘Moscow Smart favourable business environment, and improve living
City—2030’: A Brief Version. standards and city governance efficiency and
Available from: https://2030.mos. transparency—based on Big Data and artificial
ru/netcat_files/userfiles/ intelligence (AI), consolidated society, enhanced active
documents_2030/strategy_tezis_ life for the elderly, and improved citizen well-being
en.pdf – Focuses on: human and social resources, urban
environment, digital mobility, city economy, safety and
ecology, and digital government
Taipei (Taiwan), 2017—The – Promotes collaboration between public and private
Implementation of Taipei Smart sectors. Aims to become a hub for smart city industry
City Project by W.-B. Lee. – Seeks to strengthen national broadband network, e.g.
Available from: https://www.lct.tp. by expanding Wi-Fi access on Taiwan High Speed Rail
edu.tw/ezfiles/1/1001/img/207/ network—passengers able to access the Internet on all
110629308.pdf trains using an iTaiwan account, and cultivate
innovative services and talent
Tel Aviv (Israel), 2016—Tel Aviv – Focuses on direct resident-oriented (lightweight)
Smart City. Available from: https:// services; decentralised, low-cost methods—for a
www.tel-aviv.gov.il/en/ cost-effective smart city initiative
WorkAndStudy/Documents/ – Reliance on local start-up ecosystem, creating
SMART%20CITY%20TEL% services, using open municipal databanks, and
20AVIV.pdf public–private partnerships
44 4 Becoming Smart

4.3 Evaluation

Smart cities are important considerations in the years to come from a multitude
of approaches and disciplinary frameworks, including multidisciplinary approaches
that address different components of this facet of the built environment. According to
Causone et al. (2017), smart cities represent a hub in global energy-flow networks and,
as such, are an essential element of the environment affected by urbanisation. Causone
et al. (2017, p. 868) provide figures for contemporary urban growth: ‘Currently,
75% of EU and 81% of the US population already lives in urban areas, whereas,
according to a UN report, the largest urban growth by 2050 will take place in Asia and
Africa’—see, for instance, the World City Populations Interactive Map 1950–2030
(Luminocity3d.org. 2016), designed by DA Smith at CASA UCL with UN data from
2014. However, much of the smart city development identified in the contemporary
literature and strategies considered in this study have been for the Global North, with
Asia experiencing some growth but still lagging behind North America and Europe.
Africa has had very little smart city growth until very recently, and will lag behind
the rest of the world—even though it is a continent that is expected to experience
continued urbanisation in the decades to come (cf. Odendaal 2006). However, it is
expected that African countries will follow suit and their smart development shall
intensify in the next decades.
The current study has focused on self-defined smart cities based on strategies
that involve projects and initiatives making up smart development. The emphasis
has been on the actually existing smart city (after e.g. Shelton et al. 2015), and a
neoliberal approach has been supported in terms of piecemeal development based
on digital technologies. Authors such as Cho (2017) have captured how surveillance
and data mass capture indicate the importance of being tracked by digital technology
that can convey spatial data. Digital data can also relay anytime-anywhere informa-
tion, providing access and control over people’s movements (Cosgrave et al. 2013).
According to the authors, this has created ‘information marketplaces’ that point to
the potential for commodified information, with implications for national private
security.
It is integral that the implications of smart cities continue to be considered in
the literature by academics as well as decision-makers and policymakers. It is not
enough to evaluate the smart city in isolation for specific criteria; instead, holistic
approaches are preferable, as they may capture a broader perspective than current
piecemeal development. What are the implications of smart technology, including
that based on AI, for the present but also the future; what could be the potential
outcomes? It is easy to get carried away with technological advancement and, in the
delivery, forget its ultimate (perhaps the initial) purpose. Robotics, for example, will
be considered later in the final chapter of this brief. Here, however, it is necessary to
evaluate the future of smart development. Because of its piecemeal evolution from an
entrepreneurial approach geared towards making cities more competitive, the overall
direction and implications are necessary to consider as part of the challenge.
4.3 Evaluation 45

It has been stated, as for instance by Caird (2018)—who conducted case study-
based research in the English cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton
Keynes, and Peterborough—that more work is needed to evaluate smart interven-
tions for both cities and citizens. A sociotechnical approach enables for such a holis-
tic or integrated assessment that considers technological issues as well as social
issues and is, therefore, well-positioned to deal with ‘wicked’ urban problems (cf.
Vasseur et al. 2017; see Chap. 6), as those stemming from socioeconomics. Similarly,
addressing the British cities of Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes, and Peterbor-
ough—with Glasgow and London added over Caird’s (2018) work—Cowley et al.
(2018) consider smart city programmes from a techno-public approach. Using this
perspective, they also discovered a dominating entrepreneurial (also service-user)
public mode that implicated both civic and political roles in their assemblage of (six)
smart cities. Joss (2018) specifically—for London, UK—addressed the technocen-
tric view that has been increasingly challenged through a focus on the urban citizen
in smart development. However, according to Joss, UK governance can circumscribe
the planning and decision-making processes involved to limit public accountability.
He has espoused that citizens adopt an entrepreneurial role as producers of infor-
mation, thereby calling for the greater involvement (or placement) of people in the
making of the cities of tomorrow. By so doing, he effectively contributes to a public
governance focus as a common (reoccurring) trend in the contemporary research
British agenda concerning smart city development.
Perhaps the greatest challenge to citizen involvement in smart cities is that alluded
to by Glasmeier and Christopherson (2015) as that of inclusiveness when accessing
digital technologies. This continues to be a challenge today because of the increas-
ing wage divide and poverty, even in developed nations, restricting equal opportu-
nities of access to technology. There is also the problem of ageing populations in
developed countries around the world and skills challenges—connected with age
and training/education—that can limit access to some demographics. Batty et al.
(2012), for instance, present (six) research challenges that include the development
of equitable technologies to improve the quality of life in cities and that enable
informed (including online and mobile forms of) participation and knowledge-
sharing as part of democratic governance. In addition, Kitchin (2015) refers to other
(research-related) shortcomings concerning the smart city agenda, raising four prob-
lematic areas, including: (1) a lack of detailed genealogies and comparative research;
(2) the use of canonical examples; (3) with an absence of empirical case studies of
initiatives, plus ‘one-size fits all narratives’; and (4) undeveloped partnerships with
different stakeholders. The current research contributes to rectifying (2) and (3), in
particular, by compiling a roster of actually existing case studies for an ‘empirical’
perspective as well as brining in a selection of detailed case studies—that can be
employed for comparisons, so contributing to (1); however, (4) remains amiss here,
except for advocating for interdisciplinary partnerships that also include academics.
46 4 Becoming Smart

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Chapter 5
Sociotechnical Issues

Abstract The influence of technology in smart cities is inevitable and continues to

emerge from an entrepreneurial approach stemming from the business model. Both
hardware and software components of technology are part of technical advancements
in technologically advanced cities. Although more work has been published on smart
cities, especially since the early 2010s, there remain uncertainties and challenges
posed by smart cities that, in practice, could pose problems for society. This chapter
addresses some of these social issues, including democratic governance opposed by
monitoring and control in these technocratic (rather than democratic) cities. Security
is addressed as Big Data and Open Access information amasses on the Internet and
can be accessed worldwide. This represents one of the key areas, especially with
the diffusion of the public-private boundary caused by continued monitoring and the
accumulation of information on people, their movements and behaviours.

Keywords Technology · Economic/entrepreneurial approach · Governance ·

Democracy · Surveillance · Cybersecurity · Big Data · Internet of things/IoT ·
Networks · Social engagement

The emphasis on technology as providing solutions to growing cities is a double-

edged sword. On the one hand, technology is capable of organising cities and ensuring
that energy expenditure is controlled, so that efficient cities are preferred due to
savings on resources—from an environmental business model. On the other hand,
technology costs and not all cities around the world can afford to invest in advanced
technology to solve their problems of rapid urban growth, environmental degradation,
and socioeconomic issues. A technological fix cannot remedy all issues facing cities,
although they can provide a means of enhanced efficiency, monitoring, and control.
In a previous publication, Thornbush et al. (2013) examine the sociotechnical
dimension to urbanism, including the potential of cities to their reduce energy demand
either through a technological approach, as by improving building energy perfor-
mance or alternatively through behaviour change, as by reducing the need for motor
vehicle use (see their Table 1, p 4). The authors also espouse (in Table 2, p 6) potential
ways towards achievinglow carbon urbanism, conveying social-technical dimensions
that include the technical dimension, which incorporates urban energy infrastructure;
building, urban design, and planning; and urban transport. Building on this study, it
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 49
M. J. Thornbush and O. Golubchikov, Sustainable Urbanism
in Digital Transitions, SpringerBriefs in Geography,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25947-1_5
50 5 Sociotechnical Issues

is possible to discern a common trend towards an integrated approach, so that smart

cities actually encompass more than just components and rather aim to be integrative,
targeting all aspects of these dimensions—including the human (social) dimension.
As addressed by other authors, such as Rose (2017), digitally-mediated urban
spaces rely on software and digital hardware that operate as a technological non-
human entity at the cost of human agency in what she terms ‘post-human agency’.
Sociotechnical agency can be spatial-temporally differentiated, according to her, in
the way that it is organised as both diverse and innovative. As such, people can
connect with such post-human agency, so should not be disenfranchised in current
developments associated with the ‘reinvention’ of the modern city encompassed in
smart city development. This development will, of course, be affected by who is in
charge of shaping the modern city and how they intend to use technology to that end.
Technology itself can be limiting in its advancement, accessibility, and acquisition,
being restricted byinnovation and the milieu of its development that can restrict
production and consumption, including the ability of people to operate it—as for
instance in the case of computer software. A balance is, therefore, required between
hardware and software (technology and human capital) to improve the quality of
life for citizens in the smart city. This necessitates a holistic approach, rather than
an unintegrated sector-based approach, where system components or subsystems
do not communicate with each other (Mattoni et al. 2015); instead, these authors
have advocated for an integrated system that operates much like a whole (human)
organism.
It has been argued that elites are responsible for smart technologies coming to
cities and causing them to function as platforms for the Internet of Things (IoT)
through connections with sensors and computers of various ‘intelligence’, capable
of connecting, communicating, and transmitting information through the Internet
(Sadowski & Pasquale 2015). These authors caution against an ensuing ‘web of
surveillance and power’ that results from biometric surveillance capabilities con-
tributing to monitoring and automated policing as part of a ‘spectrum of control’
that guides governance through ‘pervasive surveillance and control mechanisms’.
This aspect of the emerging smart city will be considered in more detail in the next
chapter, and this chapter will address a broader plethora of problems stemming from
the technical dimension. In the next section, technology will be considered as a
market-based solution in a technical-entrepreneurial approach to understanding the
popularisation of the smart city.

5.1 Technology as a Solution

Computer systems are leading the operation of cities, with their commission stem-
ming from the need to reduce energy consumption and emissions (Lombardi et al.
2017). According to these authors, spatial decision support systems (MC-SDSS), for
example, need to be retrofitted, and there is a lack of knowledge and evaluation cri-
teria needed to assess and deliver urban energy using this tool as part of a long-term
5.1 Technology as a Solution 51

socioeconomic-environmental approach. Nevertheless, smart technologies are being

increasingly deployed in cities for various reasons, including for urban infrastruc-
tural control through the integration of urban services with information technology
(Luque-Ayala & Marvin 2016). Circulatory flow is managed through networks, such
as Rio de Janeiro’s Operations Centre (COR)—a control-room scenario (media plat-
form) that has emerged since 2011 to provide logistics at the city-scale from the
everyday to emergency situations, such as the traumatic rainfall and flooding experi-
enced in April 2010 that led to the enlistment of IBM to deal with the problem through
COR, which operates 24 hours a day and seven days a week and interconnects the
information of several municipal systems for visualisation, monitoring, analysis, and
response in real-time (Luque-Ayala & Marvin 2016). These authors have defended
the ‘urban governmentality’ that COR represents in addition to offering the novelty
of urban vision and engagement.
Wireless technology has now developed well and beyond wired CCTV cameras
emplaced to enhance surveillance and, thereby, security, with entire wireless sen-
sor networks capable of (low-power) remote sensing and monitoring a variety of
dimensions in the smart city (Ramirez et al. 2016). Data acquired through sensing
are stored in compact devices that, according to these authors, do not consume much
power and can greatly improve data management in terms of both storage and trans-
mission. In this way, different information can be gathered on various aspects of the
environment (and natural hazards), but also accidents and transport, logistics, and
healthcare as well as security. Such ICT-led transformations are influencing contem-
porary responses to global environmental change. As also mentioned by others, such
as Sadowski and Pasquale (2015), the role of ‘technocratic elites’ and that of private
capital investing in boosting a techno-environmental fix are recognised, which is
part of a wider politico-economic context, so that elites can act to prevent alternative
politico-ecological transitions from taking place.
Even though technology, and ICT or information and communication technol-
ogy in particular, represents a technical approach to evolving cities, urban geog-
raphers (Wiig & Wyly 2016) and interdisciplinary networks, such as the Smart
Cities Innovation Network (Villanueva-Rosales et al. 2015), have contributed towards
understanding smart cities and the rationale for them. Geographers, such as Wiig
(2015), have examined IBM’s Smart Cities Challenge as an example of policymaking
in the smart city. The author portrays initiatives as case studies (also see other publi-
cations, e.g. Anthopoulos 2017 for 10 smart city cases)—an approach also adopted in
this brief, deployed by various smart city initiatives. He has also addresses the role of
city governments as key actors in a multi-stakeholder arena of players responsible for
the advancement of the smart city paradigm. Wiig (2015) identifies entrepreneurial
governance involved in policy mobility in part of the globalised economy (what he
terms as a ‘globalised business enterprise’ that has attracted corporations like IBM)
and digital governance as part of redevelopments to realise the smart city. In a subse-
quent publication, Wiig (2016) presents the technological solutions provided by the
case study of the Digital On-Ramps initiative based on IBM’s policy consultation in
Philadelphia (also see Wiig 2014), where residents were trained to enter the infor-
mation and knowledge economy using a workforce education App. He argues that
52 5 Sociotechnical Issues

rather than addressing urban inequalities, such programmes work more to sell cities
in the global economy. Such a social media style approach to training can become
commonplace in the green economy that is still struggling to emerge.
Also relating to policymaking and governance, authors (e.g. Zotano & Bersini
2017) relay opportunities involving Open Data accessible by businesses as well as
citizens. According to the authors, Open Data portals can be deployed to develop new
business models as part of a holistic approach that they have applied to the Brussels
Capital Region. These authors have found that cities, such as Brussels (Belgium),
are not fully capable of exploiting the ‘real intelligence’ provided by smart cities and
that the ‘maturity’ required to achieve this ambition may be attained in the coming
years through the implementation of smart city strategies, such as Brussels’ Smart
City Strategy.
Smart cities can be seen as a contagion that once expelled into cities cannot be
reverted and undone. In other words, there is potentially no going back from the smart
city craze that has inflicted cities around the world. Should technology be implicit
in all, as evidenced by Chourabi et al.’s (2012) smart city initiative framework (see
their Fig. 1, p 2294), that recognises two levels of influences: outer factors (natural
environment, infrastructure, economy, governance, people, communities) and inner
factors (technology, policy, management) that are more influential than the outer
factors. The authors consider technology as a ‘meta-factor’ in smart city initiatives,
as it greatly sways all of the other success factors in the framework.
What drives technology, of course, is energy, which is also deserving of con-
sideration, as with smart energy cities (presented in Chap. 6)—a concept that has
developed in the literature at least since the early 2010s and is arguably rooted in
a sustainability framework. A case-in-point is Milano, Italy as a smart energy city.
Smart cities appeared in Italy after 2008, with particular preparation being made
heading into Expo 2015. This involved multiple sectors: buildings (domestic, heat-
ing); lighting (public, private); transport (public, private); energy use; and energy
sources: electricity, natural gas, fuel oil, gasoline, and thermal fluid. Evaluations of
energy smartness have been constrained by low-data quality and the availability of
energy flows in cities (Causone et al. 2017). The initiative sharing cities accelerated
the take-up of smart city solutions; it identified three business models that proved
the acceleration of uptake (e.g. refurbishment, smart lamp posts), which was part of
doing more with less: smart cities for the age of austerity (Pollio 2016) as part of a
technological solution that was supposed to adapt to annihilated fiscal budgets.
Another example of an actually existing smart city is Barcelona, Spain, which has
been imagined as a smart and self-sufficient city (smart transformation). Barcelona
City Council merged the planning and infrastructure, housing, environment, and ICT
departments into a single department called ‘Urban Habitat’. A new urban model
adopted the vision of Barcelona’s chief architect, Vicente Guallart (during the Euro
Crisis of 2011–2012) involving the notion of the ‘multi-scalar city’ as a distributed
network, with a vision of empowering citizens through technological improvements.
According to March and Ribera-Fumaz (2016), its architecture operates much as a
model of networked habitats.
5.1 Technology as a Solution 53

In Portugal, part of connected urban development (CDU) is a leading initiative

with CISCO that aims to demonstrate how to leverage ICT above all high connec-
tivity and collaboration. Part of the Portuguese National Plan of Action for Energy
Efficiency and National Strategy for Energy, one of these programmes (ECO.AP
2011), aims for an increase of 20% in energy efficiency in public buildings in Leiria,
Portugal by 2020.
These cities (Lisbon, also San Francisco, Amsterdam, Seoul, Birmingham, Ham-
burg, Madrid) will spearhead the implementation of projects aimed at reducing
urban emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2 ), subsequently acting as references for the
widespread implementation of such projects in other cities around the world (CISCO
2008, European Commission 2011; see Galvão et al. 2017). This has been one of the
predominant approaches in the emergence of smart cities, which has included the
following two main approaches:
• Environmental: sustainable cities, ‘green’ economy, including energy-efficient
buildings; smart mobility—part of a multifaceted, interdisciplinary approach
• Economics: entrepreneurialism, where the business model is used to account for
vendors and smart development
The latter encompasses an entrepreneurial approach to digital spaces and Big Data
embodies ‘spaces of accumulation’ that represent commodified digital information.
In a post-capitalist urban and neoliberal context, profit generation is at the fore-
front of many initiatives building up the notion of smart cities. This is evident through
continued efforts since around the time of the European economic crisis and previous
to this at a global scale. Technological solutions, although they may not resolve con-
temporary economic problems, work to support technical groups, as in computing,
corporations, and elites that ultimately benefit from this type of urban rebranding
and regeneration.

5.2 Social Issues

Although governments have been supporting advancements towards the smart city,
there are social issues needing address that provide caveats to such a technological
approach. Smart cities are being set up to gather information that can be used to inform
decision-making, policymaking, and management. This information is necessary for
officials who need to make sensible decisions, as in evidence-based decision-making;
in addition, the devices used to collect information have many benefits in that they
can be low-energy and their use lead towards energy saving. These platforms have
provided an organisation that could even lead to urban economic renewal. As part
of an economic development policy, smart cities have been supporting innovation
and even included participatory innovation platforms (Anttiroiko 2016). This author,
for instance, has written concerning enabler-driven innovation platforms and living
labs (e.g. Bates & Friday 2017 based on IoT) that are apparent in Finnish cities,
such as Helsinki, Tampere, and Oulu. Such platforms are deployed to support urban
54 5 Sociotechnical Issues

revitalisation and economic development even when operating at the level of local
governance, where they have stimulated public engagement in the production of
local public services and participation in the making of cities. According to the
author, participatory innovation platforms help to procure social inclusion, among
other things, through platform-based citizen engagement, which is considered to be a
‘soft’ strategy to counteract social polarisation and socioeconomic segregation and,
therefore, inequalities.
Public engagement with smart cities and their growth is evident in various forms.
One piece of evidence are the publications that have proliferated recently, as for
example special issues addressing smart city technology (e.g. He et al. 2014) and
sustainable urban transformation (Zhang et al. 2016) as well as the aforementioned
special issue by Wiig and Wyly (2016)—based on an Association of American Geog-
raphers meeting that addressed the question: What does the smart city, as a digital turn
in urban governance, tell us about cities today? that acknowledged the transformative
process demonstrated by smart cities—plus the special section on rapid urbanisation
by Wigginton et al. (2016), to name a few. Another example is that of university
training courses based on an innovative learning system in entrepreneurship using
mass open online courses to support policy learning (Holotescu et al. 2016). As
already mentioned, an entrepreneurial approach is evidenced in smart cities, with
markets recognised—as for example hydrogen as an electric carrier and for storage
over electric batteries (Marino et al. 2015); additionally, Sadowski (2016) recognises
the need to ‘sell smartness’ and, by so doing, conveys its commodification where
there is wealth in cities. In fact, niche markets are apparent, engaging all business
sectors (and multi-stakeholders) and headed by local governments in conjunction
with vendors (Anthopoulos & Fitsilis 2015). So, in addition to the predominantly
economic driver of smart cities, there are also social systems of consumership that are
both affected by as well as driving change where there is wealth. Renewable energy,
such as solar energy and PV (Menniti et al. 2017), has been advocated to fuel sustain-
able and smart cities (e.g. Barragán & Terrados 2017), conveying an environmental
approach guiding their development (e.g. Katra town, India; Sharma & Dogra 2017).
Such ‘urban entrepreneurialism’, which is part of the corporate smart city model,
allows for urban competitiveness, driven by hi-tech companies and city governance
(referred to by Hollands 2015) as corporate and entrepreneurial governance, but
according to the author constrains public participation in the smart city.
Among this growing body of data are the issues of data mass capture and surveil-
lance that emerge with spatial data that are possibly tracked by digital technology
(Cho 2017). Digital data can also relay anytime-anywhere information, providing
access and control over people’s movements (Cosgrave et al. 2013). These authors
also mention ‘information marketplaces’ that point to the potential for commodi-
fied information, with implications for national private security. In addition to issues
of hackers and accessibility issues, there are also robotics to consider in keeping
security. As for example witnessed by Odendaal (2006), who recognises the socioe-
conomic fragmentation of South African cities and the potential for manipulation
by corporations, such as the South Africa company Desert Wolf that discharged
the Skunk—a riot-control drone armed with sublethal capabilities (fires paintballs,
5.2 Social Issues 55

pepper-spray, rubber bullets, blinding lasers)—to disperse or mark people in crowds,

such as protestors (Doctorow 2014). According to the author, this technology, used
by mining companies against strikes in South Africa, has potential to be deployed
to subdue those who seek to interrupt and change the current structures of power
and capital. So, there are other social issues that are mixed up with technological
approaches to security as well as other aspects of smart cities.
By implication, more research is needed to address how smart cities fit into a
democratic society. Democratic governance is counterposed by elitism and poten-
tially automated processes (e.g. e-government) and such top-down organisations
that have potential to police human behaviour. The amassment and use of Big Data,
including as for example Big Data analytics (e.g. Al Nuaimi et al. 2015), pose a
challenge to privacy due to a lack of public consent. This could act to sharpen the
private-public boundary, as by recognising that by stepping outside one’s house is
stepping into the monitored, public domain. However, through smart houses them-
selves, human behaviour can be monitored even within the private sphere (e.g, smart
home monitoring systems), so that the notion of privacy is once again superseded by
constant observation, monitoring, and potentially control.

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Chapter 6
Conclusion

Abstract In this final chapter, the problems posed by smart development are consid-
ered from an ethical perspective. Here, the business model and entrepreneurial smart
growth are examined for implications to unchecked development based on artificial
intelligence (AI) as being centrally-controlled by computer technicians and corpora-
tions. Caveats are presented for consideration of potential developments stemming
from information technology or IT corporations and their involvement in the expan-
sion of robotics, including those directly involved in smart cities.

Keywords Integrated (holistic) systems · Interdisciplinary approach ·

Framework/taxonomies for classification · Models · Robotics · Smart control ·
Democratic governance · Urbanisation · Sustainable development · International
ethics

Cities around the world have been getting ‘smarter’ as more advanced technology
is integrated into urban planning and design. People are relying more on technology
for routine communications at home and in their daily lives, which has merited use
of information and communication technology (ICT) with unified communications,
such as telecommunications (including smartphones, telephone lines, wireless net-
works, etc.) as well as computers, iPads, going paperless, chips and batteries for
energy storage, wireless/remote charging, and so on. Cities are also adopting new
technology through sensors deployed to monitor and gather information about people
and their environment for reasons of ease-of-use and resource efficiency, entailing
‘doing things better for less’ or more for less as part of a descaling economy and
austerity measures. Such increasing automation and efficiency have led to Big Data
collection that is used for reporting and governance and loops back to inform planning
and design.
This brief has examined the progression of the development of the smart city
and its dialogue with the concept of sustainability, from its infancy at the scale
of individual buildings mixed with the literature on efficient buildings and moving
towards well-adapted and resilient sustainable cities in transition. More recently,
there has been a focus in the literature on energy savings and efficiency that has
fostered research progress in intelligent and smarter systems. These have evolved
more recently to embrace the concept of the smart energy city. Specifically, this brief
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 59
M. J. Thornbush and O. Golubchikov, Sustainable Urbanism
in Digital Transitions, SpringerBriefs in Geography,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25947-1_6
60 6 Conclusion

examines the recent evolution of the application of smart cities as ‘actually existing
smart cities’ that is driving these cities as they emerge around the world.
By addressing ‘actually existing’ smart cities, it is possible to exclude from the
analysis of utopian approaches that are non-existing. Tracking the smart cities of
today, it is possible to illuminate the progress made in the recent past, in the present,
and consider the culmination of the current trajectory. Amid the plethora of develop-
ing smart cities and the attention paid to them through various publications, reports,
and conferences evident especially since 2016 is a need to consider the direction
that smart development has actually taken in contemporary cities. Ultimately, this
will influence future development that is necessarily shaped by current real-world
experiences, including the resolution of any challenges.
The contributions of this brief have included a delineation of the development
of smart cities that has, arguably, stemmed very much from energy-efficient cities
and low carbon urbanism. It has also adopted a sociotechnical approach to examine
the evolution of the concept and its continuation towards the ‘smart energy city’.
This line of progression, which is grounded in conceptualisations of sustainable
cities, has emerged to once again encompass energy smartness—and has, thereby,
gone full circle. The role that technology has had in instigating and developing
smart cities cannot be overstated. It has been fundamental to controlling climate in
buildings and improving mobility and other aspects of urban development, including
crowdsourcing based on the amassment of Big Data.
There are technical and social issues outlined in this brief, such as the implications
of control extending to people as well as technology, as for instance using machines
such as the Skunk in South Africa for controlling protests and to disperse crowds.
Due to piecemeal smart development, the issue of social justice may be overlooked,
and attention is needed here as part of democratic governance, which can continue
to be disregarded if entrepreneurial governance goes unchecked, as apparent already
with some of the mining corporations of South Africa. Poverty is another social
issue needing continued attention by the government, in particular, to offset growing
disparities in expanding smart cities. There are contingent issues here, such as that
of urbanisation, that similarly affect smart city development. Disregarding the issues
will not make them go away; instead, they will continue to propagate in the actually
existing smart cities of today and tomorrow.
Control through technology, such as that of monitoring and information gathering,
will not on its own solve the wicked problems facing society. Big Data can be
generated, for instance, but on its own problems will persist—what society does with
the information that it collects is vital, and will determine how problems are addressed
and resolved. This information can be disseminated to corporations for marketing
purposes and lead to unethical use without consent, as already cautioned for the
waterfront smart development planned for the City of Toronto (Canada). It may
also venture into the private domain (people’s homes) and there gather knowledge
about individuals and their livelihoods, affecting personal security (privacy) even in
the private domain. Again, how this information is used can interfere with people’s
rights and notions of democracy.
6 Conclusion 61

Moving from the control of the technical to that of the social (and individual)
is a key consideration, especially for countries that are already governed by dic-
tators or those ruled by technocratic elites (as discussed by Sadowski & Pasquale
2015; cf. Brenner & Theodore 2002) in so-called democratic countries. Neoliberal-
ism and the persistence of capitalism are also affecting smart development through
entrepreneurial ventures involved in selling devices as well as the idea of utopian
futuristic cities. Vendors are able to sell information technology or IT in various
forms to build the city of tomorrow as a technologically advanced entity that benefits
them, but without planning for the challenges that such development introduces.
Social responsibility is needed to be upheld by corporations as well as individual
sellers of these future cities. They should represent more than a contribution to sales
and profit margins in the business model. It should be the imperative of leaders and
governments, in particular, to closely monitor and check smart growth as part of a
strategy grasped around the world. What is more, an autonomous ethical governing
body is needed to examine the direction that these cities are taking as part of sustain-
able development and, more specifically, the sustainable development goals (SDGs)
for sustainable cities and communities.
Smart development, after all, is directed—the question is by whom and to what
end. This needs to be examined from a community-based framework steered towards
the common good. People and organisations with vested interests need to be gov-
erned and their actions ethically verified before smart growth persists in developed
and developing nations. Robotics, likewise, needs to be closely monitored and con-
trolled before the situation is reversed and people themselves become the target of
monitoring and control by intelligent technology and the corporations that deliver
these entities into existence. It is important to do so in order to avoid a future where
human ethics and freedoms are driven to the brink to be replaced by artificial intel-
ligence (AI, robotics, e.g. Sophia developed by Hanson Robotics) that can become
self-conscious and self-directed entities and potentially in control of society.
The United Nations has the potential to develop an international ethics commit-
tee that is responsible for upholding conventional democracy and the personal and
individual freedoms of all humans. What seems like an innocent development in
smartness and intelligent (automated) operations can turn into a social nightmare
for people around the world. Governmental organisations need to acknowledge their
role in curbing any potential threat to democracy, even in the face of elites and other
undemocratic groups, that are increasingly empowered around the world and tak-
ing advantage of such a non-thinking mechanism as independent devices that are
centrally-controlled via the Internet to operate within a platform that can be hacked
or controlled by IT-savvy technicians who can be bought.
The cities of tomorrow, and the operation of society that is increasingly contained
in these cities, rest on computer security and IT control that eludes many people,
including the decision-makers of today. It is the role of computer-literate profes-
sionals and governments to ensure the safety of these places and their continued
commitment to the individual rights and freedoms on which democracy is based.
62 6 Conclusion

Effective checks and balances need to be installed and in place for healthy smart
development. Reporting needs to occur to officials who are in charge of these con-
trols that govern smart cities and their propagation from the city to city-region to
envelope entire countries and eventually the world.

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Index

A Digital spaces, 53
Austerity measures, 2, 4, 6, 59 Digital technology, 38, 44, 45, 54

B E
Big Data, 1, 40, 42, 43, 49, 53, 55, 59, 60 Eco-cities, 9, 11–14, 17, 25
Economic crisis/Euro crisis, 2–4, 52, 53
C Ecotopian view, 12
Case study approach, 41 Energy conservation, 21
cases, 35, 41 energy conservation techniques, 26
case studies, 35, 40–42, 45, 51 energy savings, 30
case study-based research, 45 Energy efficiency, 4, 5, 21, 25, 28, 41, 53
case study roster, 35 efficient, 22, 59
smart city cases, 51 efficient cities, 49
Climate policies, 10, 15, 16 See also Climate efficient vehicles and fuels, 29
policy energy-efficient, 5, 17, 43, 53
climate neutral policies, 23 energy-efficient buildings, 6
Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV)/video energy-efficient cities, 62
surveillance, 1, 51 enhanced efficiency, 49
Commodified information, 44, 54 Energy poverty, 9
Computer platforms, 6 Equitable technologies, 45
Corporate smart city model, 54
G
D Google Scholar, 1–3
Data capture, 44, 54 Governance, 3, 6, 14–17, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45,
Degrowth economy, 4 49–52, 54, 55, 59, 60
decarbonisation of economies, 10 democratic, 45, 49, 55, 59, 60
descaling economy, 59 digital, 51
Digital Age, 4, 6 entrepreneurial, 51, 54, 60
Digital democracy, 42 local, 54
democratic right, 42 public, 15, 16, 47, 56
Digital divide, 7, 40–42 self, 6

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 63

M. J. Thornbush and O. Golubchikov, Sustainable Urbanism
in Digital Transitions, SpringerBriefs in Geography,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25947-1
64 Index

Green building and design, 6 N

green growth, 9 Neoliberal agenda/neoliberal
Green economy, 52, 53 approach/Neoliberalism, 3, 44, 61

H O
Hardware, 49, 50 Operating systems, 41
Hi-tech, 1, 54
P
I Participation, 10, 14–16, 42, 45, 53, 54
Inclusive growth/Inclusiveness/Inclusive citizen engagement, 54
technologies, 6, 45 participatory democracy, 10
social inclusion, 14 social engagement, 49
Information and Communication Technology Partnerships – Public/Private, 6, 16, 21, 43
(ICT), 1, 6, 30, 42, 51–53, 59 collaboration, 42, 43, 53
ICT-led transformations, 51 partnerships, 45
IT-based, 30 public/private cooperation, 42
Innovation, 10, 13, 15, 43, 50, 53, 54 Piecemeal development/evolution, 7, 44
Internet, 1, 38, 39, 42, 43, 49, 50, 61 Public engagement firms, 54
internet of things (IoTs), 38, 49, 50
R
K Rebranding/Revitalisation, 1, 4, 6, 53, 54
Knowledge-sharing, 45 regeneration, 13, 53
sharing knowledge, 15 Renewable energy, 6, 12–14, 21–25, 28, 31,
40, 41, 43, 54
L renewable, 22
Living labs, 53 renewable resources, 30
Low carbon economy, 25 renewable sources of energy, 28
Low carbon futures, 4, 6, 14 renewable types of energy, 21
carbon neutral, 9, 13, 30 Resilience, 4, 6, 10
carbon reduction, 25 Retrofit development, 13
climate neutrality, 10 insulation retrofitting, 26
decarbonisation, 21, 22, 24, 25 retrofit, 24–26, 29, 50
energy efficiency, 16 Robotics, 44, 54, 59, 61
energy transitions, 17
low carbon lifestyle, 28 S
low carbon transitions, 9, 10, 14, 35 Scale-wise growth, 36
transition, 21, 22 Scopus/GEOBASE, 2, 4
low carbon urbanism, 5, 49, 60 Sector-based/Sectorial approach, 50
low or zero-carbon cities, 29 Sensors, 12, 30, 38, 41, 50, 51, 59
transition to low carbon cities, 9 Smart development/transformation, 1, 5–7, 9,
zero-carbon, 9, 12, 13 15, 22, 29, 35, 36, 39, 44, 45, 51–54,
zero emissions, 31 59–62
Low carbon technologies, 25 development, 50
low carbon energy technologies, 28 low carbon development (LCD), 11, 17
smart city development, 41, 44, 45, 50, 60
M Smart energy cities, 1, 4, 5, 52, 59, 60
Multiple stakeholders/multi-stakeholders, 51, Smart interventions, 45
54 Smart strategies, 35, 39–42
Multi-scalar/Upscaling, 1, 4, 6, 52 Smart urbanism, 6
Index 65

Social justice, 3, 9, 10, 60 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 61

democracy, 49, 60, 61
digital inclusion, 42 T
growing disparities, 60 Technical-entrepreneurial approach, 50
human and social rights, 9 Technocratic elites, 51, 61
inclusive, 43 Techno-environmental fix, 51
public consent, 55 Technological solutions/Technocentric view, 6,
social inclusion, 29, 54 45, 51–53
social responsibility, 9, 61 technological fix, 49
Sociotechnical perspective, 37, 41 Techno-public approach, 45
sociotechnical agency, 50 Temporal framework, 36
sociotechnical approach, 45, 60
sociotechnical dimension, 49 U
sociotechnical issues, 49 Urban development, 13, 60
Software, 49, 50 Urban metabolism, 13
Spatial data, 44, 54 Utopias, 3
Spatiality, 36 techno-utopian imageries view, 4
Start-ups, 4, 41, 43 utopian approaches, 60
start-up innovation, 4 utopian futuristic cities, 61
Surveillance/Security, 1, 6, 44, 49–51, 54, 55, utopian view, 2, 4
61
cybersecurity, 49 W
Sustainable cities, 1, 7, 12, 53, 59–61 Wicked problems, 60
sustainability, 54, 59 ‘wicked’ urban problems, 45
urban sustainability, 1, 4, 9
Sustainable development, 21, 42, 59, 61