Towards Intelligently - Sustainable Cities? From Intelligent and Knowledge City Programmes to the Achievement of Urban Sustainability

Abstract

In the quest for achieving sustainable cities, Intelligent and Knowledge City Programmes (ICPs and KCPs) represent cost-efficient strategies for improving the overall performance of urban systems, especially when compared with the costs of physical restructuring and/or retrofitting projects. However, even though nobody argues on the desirability of making cities “smarter”, the fundamental questions of how and to what extent can ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement of urban sustainability lack a precise answer. In the attempt of providing a structured answer to these interrogatives, this paper presents a methodology developed for investigating the modalities through which ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement or urban sustainability. Overall, our research suggests that ICPs and KCPs can potentially contribute to all three dimensions of sustainability (i.e. economic, social and environmental), but their main efficacy lies in supporting cities achieve a sustainable urban metabolism through optimization, innovation and behavior changes.