Cities and Smartness: A Critical Analysis of Opportunities and Risks

The term “Smart City” is to-date widely used, but little clarity appears in the definition behind it. Several approaches led to a growing emphasis on the combined use of geographic information and communication technology to build cognitive frameworks in city planning and management. The present paper tackles an effort to define ‘smart cities’ and to identify both elements of smartness, and critical aspects related to the current interpretation of the term. In particular, the risk of considering the technological layer of Smart City as an innovative element has been observed, highlighting, on the contrary, the need to consider Smart Cities in terms of a major urban planning effort to coordinate and harmonize different urban players, sustained by ICT instruments.