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Smarter Decisions for Smarter Cities: Lessons Learned from Strategic Plans

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Abstract

This chapter presents challenges and methodological insights from applying smart city approaches in the context of public decision-making. It discusses the smart city as a changing and fuzzy concept which expresses the need for cities to find ICT-driven, intelligent and sustainable solutions to a panoply of urban challenges, covering many dimensions: smart economy; smart mobility; smart environment; smart people; smart living; and smart governance. In the urban planning context, where these dimensions need to be considered in an integrated manner, the smart approach relies on the ability to link infrastructures, services and users, increasing the flexibility and transparency of urban policies and decision-making. In this context, smart approaches must move beyond an urban labelling phenomenon and be grounded in a (horizontal) urban policy practice. Four Portuguese strategic plans are used as empirical examples of improving decision-making by incorporating ICT in the process design. The focus is on the methodological contributions and on illustrating how the smart city concept can be adjusted to analyse concrete policy approaches in the complex system of spatial interactions that form modern urban environments.

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Acknowledgment

This work was financially supported by: Project Portugal: Regional Integration of Demography and Economy Financiamento solicitado (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016431 & POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016868) funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020—Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) and by national funds through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences (DCSPT), University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Jan Wolf, Monique Borges, João Lourenço Marques & Eduardo Castro

Authors
  1. Jan Wolf
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  2. Monique Borges
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  3. João Lourenço Marques
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  4. Eduardo Castro
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jan Wolf , Monique Borges , João Lourenço Marques or Eduardo Castro .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Setúbal, Portugal

    Luísa Cagica Carvalho

  2. Departamento de Economia, University of Évora, Évora, Portugal

    Conceição Rego  & Maria Raquel Lucas  & 

  3. School of Economics & Business Administration, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain

    M. Isabel Sánchez-Hernández

  4. Departamento de Administração, University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Adriana Backx Noronha Viana

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Wolf, J., Borges, M., Marques, J.L., Castro, E. (2019). Smarter Decisions for Smarter Cities: Lessons Learned from Strategic Plans. In: Cagica Carvalho, L., Rego, C., Lucas, M.R., Sánchez-Hernández, M.I., Backx Noronha Viana, A. (eds) New Paths of Entrepreneurship Development. Studies on Entrepreneurship, Structural Change and Industrial Dynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96032-6_2

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