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 Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today I will introduce a research paper by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original paper, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole paper.

Our summary today works with the article titled Towards intelligently sustainable cities? – From intelligent and knowledge city programmes to the achievement of urban sustainability from 2013 by Vittorio Gargiulo Morelli, Margot Weijnen, Ellen Van Bueren, Ivo Wenzler, Marke de Reuver, and Luca Salvati, published in the Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment. Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how intelligent and knowledge city programmes can contribute to urban sustainability. This article suggests that their main efficacy lies in supporting cities through optimization, innovation and behaviour changes.

If achieving sustainability seems to be a straightforward solution to the challenges of increasing population and urbanisation, the same cannot be said regarding the strategies required for turning this new paradigm of development into concrete actions. There are many and widely disputed plans and policies for enabling sustainable development in all its forms, but they all agree on one point: cities are called to take the lead in this transformation. However, there is still little agreement on the most desirable urban forms and management strategies that will make cities simultaneously more sustainable and competitive.

The strength of sustainability concepts is also its main weakness. Sustainable development embodies multiple values, such as people, planet and profit which makes it possible to bridge conflicting interests between these values when defining ambitions. However, problems emerge when these ambitions are made tangible and measurable. There is no consensus among scholars and urban planners on the definition of sustainable urban development indicators. At the present moment, there is deep uncertainty concerning the strategies and policies that can effectively implement principles of sustainability within urban systems and how these can be measured and monitored.

Therefore, governments try to make their cities smarter while assuming this creates more sustainability. Intelligent and Knowledge City Programmes, abbreviated to ICPs and KCPs, are thus regarded as cost-efficient strategies for making cities more flexible, efficient, sustainable, urban, aesthetic and functional, even though there is little evidence for ICPs and KCPs doing so. No one disagrees that smarter cities are highly desirable and enhancing their performance will improve the quality of life of its citizens. Thus, smart city is regarded as a positive management concept just as sustainable development. But the intelligent and knowledge city programmes’ contribution to sustainability targets is often vague, left implicit, normative and affected by wishful thinking. The aim of this research was to highlight the connection between ICPs and KCPs and urban sustainability and providing a framework for designing smarter cities that also reveal more sustainable.

Sustainable development, the core principle of urban sustainability is still ambiguous. Most of the disputes over sustainability is mainly derive from the multi-faceted nature of the concept, possible opposing approaches such as reductionism and holistic thinking, boundaries and ethical dimensions making it culturally dependent, among others. The question of sustainable development and its implementation seems to be challenging from the social and the scientific perspectives as well. The authors state that sustainability should rather be a verb – to sustainabilize

To sustainabilize is the long term process of transforming the structure and functioning of a system in such a way that it uses progressively less non-renewable energy sources and exploits ecosystem services at a rate that is smaller than the time needed for self-regeneration while improving the living standards, environmental well-being and economic performance of human settlements. It needs to be guided by a vision accepted by stakeholders and to embody the moral values and principles of good governance, with an integrated approach considering interactions within and outside the targeted system.

To establish measurements for the Sustainabilizing City – for what gets measured gets managed – the authors developed their own evaluation methodology. Their indicators were put into two different sets: sustainable imperatives with sustainable urban metabolism pillar, and contingent sustainability with sustainable society, sustainable economy, and sustainable environment pillars. The sustainable imperatives need to be present in all cities, but the contingent sustainability has to be negotiated based on the city’s specifics.

Then, intelligent and knowledge city ideals, generally regarded as smart city initiatives were investigated. These usually use ICT and the city’s digital infrastructure for different purposes, but the main goal is generally to improve the urban operations and managements for the intelligent city programmes, while the knowledge city programmes are designed to improve the territorial governance systems and innovation nurturing knowledge and creativity. Even the distinction of these two required a framework, based on technological foundation, enablers of intelligence, types of intelligence, and value added.

The concept to sustainabilize is transposed to urban settlements resulting in four fundamental pillars between two sets of sustainable imperatives and contingent sustainability. While the definitions of a sustainable society, economy and environment cannot be universally defined, what is meant for a sustainable urban metabolism should be common to all cities. In their understanding, sustainable urban metabolism means all input flows with energy and resources are in equilibrium with the regeneration of those sources, when output flows are recycled or naturally absorbed by the city’s ecosystem and when urban activities have a marginal impact on the environment.

Based on the comparisons, four points were discovered:

1. ICPs mainly contribute to the achievement of a sustainable urban metabolism, while KCPs support this goal by promoting behaviour changes within the community and innovation-based activities.
2. Through improved urban safety and mobility, better governance systems and the development of a knowledge-based economy, ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement of a sustainable society.
3. Through improved management of urban sectors and infrastructure and the development of a knowledge-based economy, ICPs and KCPs contribute to the achievement of a sustainable economy.
4. Through the improved management of environmental compartments, ICPs are facilitators for the achievement of a sustainable environment deriving mainly from the optimization of city infrastructure and services, while KPCs contribute through behaviour changes within the community.

One of the results was that the imperative requirement for cities to become sustainable is that their urban metabolisms progressively reduce their dependency on non-renewable energy, lower the consumption rates of natural resources and ecosystem services, reduce the quantity of wastes produced and decrease the environmental impact of all urban activities and sectors. The word progressively is to highlight the need for a city to commit for the long-term and have a clear vision and robust strategies approved by the main stakeholders of the system. There are three main strategies for achieving a sustainable urban metabolism: higher efficiency, behaviour changes in lifestyles and innovation.

Reflecting in general terms on the contribution of ICPs and KCPs to urban sustainability, there seems to be a considerable number of these programmes deeply rely on the extent to which humans become intelligent. Both of these programme types are enablers of human and collective intelligence which means that their implementation does not guarantee that citizens will change their behaviour as planned. The basic principle is that besides the obstacles faces by Intelligent and Knowledge Cities, becoming smart requires efforts and not just in the form of investments in ICT and digital infrastructure.

In light of the increasing urban population growth and energy consumption levels, the path towards sustainability and whether these ICPs and KCPs will be able to accommodate these trends seem questionable. In order for ICPs and KCPs to successfully leverage sustainability, optimization of urban sectors and behaviour changes need to be pursued in tandem. The main reason justifying this need is to reduce the probability that higher urban efficiency indirectly translates into increasing per capita consumption levels. In fact, it might well be the case that cities result less sustainable despite being more intelligent because of these scenarios. Urban intelligence and sustainability are strongly related, but it is incorrect to assume that they are the two sides of the same coin.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Sustainability can be transformed into a verb: to sustainabilize being the long-term process of transforming the structure and functioning of a system in such a way that uses progressively less non-renewable energy sources and exploits ecosystem services at a rate that is smaller than the time needed for self-regeneration, while improving the living standards, environmental well-being and economic performance of human settlements.
2. Cities all need to have a sustainable urban metabolism with balanced systems for inputs and outputs, but their understanding of sustainable society, economy and environment will vary based on their cultural differences.
3. Although urban intelligence and urban sustainability are strongly related, they cannot be exchanged – they can help each other, but do not mean to other, and the transformation requires the participation of the citizens besides the technological advancements, to say to least.

Additionally, it would be great to talk about the following questions:

1. What behavioural change would be the most important for citizens to accommodate?
2. What is needed from individuals and what is needed from organisations for the behavioural change to be systemic?
3. Are you part of the transformation of your urban area?
4. What can you change in your lifestyle to sustainabilize more in your environment?

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