Tag Archive for: Smart City

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1264 | 883 | Are smart and sustainable cities key factors for RECs?? | Daniele Mezzapelle

Climate change is probably the greatest threat humanity is facing in the 21st century. Moreover, the Covid pandemic worsened the already dramatic situation. Thus, a changing approach to urban dimension – in terms of wellness, health or development – appears to be required. The paper debates that this changing involves synergistic measures to cope climate change while promoting a more conscious use of resources, especially those of the Renewable Energy Communities (RECs), based on the idea that economic growth “as usual” cannot take place at the expense of others fundamental principles such as social justice, intergenerational equity, and environmental protection. Adopting a geographical and scalar approach, the proposed interpretation focuses on the role and potential of cities in articulating a new framework for interpreting reality in view of the need to embark on a more sustainable development path, defining resilient strategies that allow not only to anticipate future shocks – as pandemic is – to prepare the system to absorb them but to adapt or transform itself as appropriate. The Smart City, conceived not as an idealistic and crystallised model of the city but as an ongoing territorial process built on policies specifically designed for the urban dimension, proves to be a valid interpretative tool to frame urban dimension in consideration of issues such as sustainability, resilience and health. A city acts intelligently, i.e. smartly, by virtue of its ability to identify stimuli and existing problems in order to respond appropriately on the basis of available resources and achieve ever higher performance in terms of economic, social, and environmental sustainability, perfectly embodying the concept of transformative resilience. In this role, the potential of cities could lie in their ability to deliver a holistic approach that brings together different paradigms to reshape the current trends on a local scale, adopting synergistic and integrated measures?

Daniele Mezzapelle
University for Foreigners of Siena

 
ID Abstract: 883

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1171 | | Integration of Artificial Intelligence into smart city initiatives | Zongtian Guo (1); Eriketti Servou (2)

Artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of smart city is an emerging topic of research and practice. Several researchers have noted that AI is becoming an increasingly significant component of smart city agendas (e.g. Cugurullo, 2020; Marvin et al., 2022; Yigitcanlar & Cugurullo, 2020). Applications of AI in smart city include a wide range of sectors, such as energy, finance, national security, health care, criminal justice,, transportation, water management and waste management. Innovative concepts such as city brains, robots, automated vehicles or building futuristic cities from scratch (i.e. NEOM), all feature advanced AI capabilities promising greater efficiency and sustainability in cities. Even though AI has extensive application prospects, there is still a lack of social science research on the wider integration of AI into smart city agendas in terms of societal opportunities, risks and disruptions (Yigitcanlar et al., 2020)
This session seeks to explore the integration of AI into smart city initiatives (agendas). It aspires to stimulate discussion about conceptual, methodological, and empirical aspects of AI technological advancements and experiences embedded in smart cities. It also seeks to elaborate on the impacts of AI in smart cities in terms of public value, citizen participation, urban infrastructure, urban governance, urban planning, urban economy, urban platforms, and urban sustainability.
We invite researchers working on the intersections of AI and smart city to present their work on addressing a variety of urban issues (e.g. urban energy, transport, safety, water quality and waste-disposal, etc.) through the integration of various AI technologies (e.g. big data, machine learning, Internet of Things, optimization algorithms) into smart city initiatives. The session’s objective is to deepen our understanding of integrating AI into smart city initiatives from a wider socio-political perspective. In this context, we call for papers, engaging with, but not limited to, the following:
 

Ethics and biases of AI in smart cities.
Critical analyses of urban AI implementations.
Green and equitable AI applications for smart cities.
The ways user’s experiences are handled by AI, and in turn inform smart city policies.
Data-driven AI and public value in smart cities.
Politics of AI in smart cities and impact on urban governance, including algorithmic governance, platform governance, platform urbanism.
Co-production of AI technologies and urban development practices.
AI and citizen participation in smart cities.

Zongtian Guo (1); Eriketti Servou (2)
(1) Trinity College Dublin, (2) Eindhoven University of Technology

 
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