PLANLAMA 2014;24(2):64-66 doi: 10.5505/planlama.2014.

65365

VIEW / GÖRÜŞ

ICT in Urban Planning, About Sustainable

Feature of The Smart City
Akıllı Kentin Sürdürülebilirlik Özelliği
Azadeh Rezafar, Turgay Kerem Koramaz

Department of Architecture, Istanbul Arel University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Istanbul

INTRODUCTION preserve them for future generations. Nowadays, the concept

of sustainability constitutes the city planners’ main agenda.
After industrialization, urban places have become very im- The concept of protecting natural resources and sustainability
portant for human residence. Recent researched have proven of cities has been important all over the world. Apart from
that more than half of the world population lives in places these multilateral changes of urban areas, globalization and
that can be defined as ‘urban’ or ‘districts’ (Schuurman, Dimi- economic pressure forced most of the cities in the world to
tri; Baccarne, Bastiaan; De Marez, Lieven; Mechant, Peter, keep up with these changes. Globalization and industrializa-
Dec 2012). Therefore, urbanization can be considered as tion of 21st century have been made the complex systems
one of the most important results of industrialization. Dur- of cities even more complex. In 21st century, the existence
ing urbanization, urban areas began to change as a response of new technologies brought different facilities to global cit-
for changing living conditions and growing population. Con- ies. New media and ITC created broad and wide communica-
sequently, cities began to exploit and make the maximum use tion networks between cities and caused the cities to adopt
of the natural areas to suffice the rising living standards of these innovative means along with the sustainable strategies.
the people. However, this caused ecological, environmental Smart city concept appeared as a direct consequence of these
and regional problems such as urban sprawl, the loss of green changes mentioned. In order to improve the quality of life of
space, loss of biodiversity, the increase of abandoned and its citizens, cities are also convinced to use ITC solutions that
polluted lands, distressed urban areas, high traffic of streets, would foster sustainability. With this opinion, the smart city
inadequate infrastructure and threatened the ecosystem. In concept has drawn enormous attention and nowadays, in the
parallel to these changes, in 1987, the terms of sustainabil- global competitiveness arena, most of the cities around the
ity and the report of ‘our common future’ drew attention world try to transform themselves into smart and green cities.
and made people focus on environmental and development
issues. The report ‘Our Common Future’ gave a major impe- SMART CITY DESCRIPTION
tus to the global, regional and national environmental policies IN THE LITERATURE
(ANDRA´ S SCHUBERT,ISTVA´ N LA´ NG, 2005). In this
case sustainability’s target is to meet the economic, environ- Urbanization causing increasing traffic jams, environmental
mental and social needs of community without harming to pollution, swallowing up the natural resources, and increas-
the living conditions of future generations. In this statement, ing social inequality caused more attention of the concept
three components of sustainability have gained importance. of smart city whose origin can be traced back to the Smart
These are economic, social and environmental. Growth Movement of the late 1990s (Paolo Neirotti, Alberto
De Marco,Anna Corinna Cagliano, Giulio Mangano, Frances-
Sustainability plan is important for protecting urban areas and co Scorrano, June 2014).

Received: October 19, 2014 Accepted: January 29, 2015

Correspondence: Azadeh Rezafar.
e-mail: [email protected]
ICT in Urban Planning, About Sustainable Feature of The Smart City 65

According to the definition of Caragliu et al., a smart city of the city such as, people, living, buildings, energy, transport
is only smart when investments in human and social capital and mobility, government, management and economy. But
and traditional (transport) and modern (ITC) communica- one of the key matters of all these concepts is to enhance
tion infrastructure fuel sustainable economic development the quality of people’s lives.
and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natu-
ral resources, through participatory governance (Jung Hoon On the other hand Smart City concept, is discussed in two
Lee,Marguerite Gong Hancock, Mei-Chih Hu, 3 October different areas; urban policies and urban planning areas. Ac-
2013). cording to Vanolo (2013), firs in the 1980s the frame work of
New Urbanism in planning area, originated which the idea of
This means that for a city to be smart, it needs to comply smart growth was one of its major results. Smart growth was
with some criteria. These criteria have been defined by a sur- a planning strategy with the aim of planning more compact
vey conducted by the Vienna, Delft and Ljubljana Universi- cities with the purpose of soil conservation. At the political
ties. They can be classified as: smart economy, smart mobil- area, smart growth also was a political idea of grass roots
ity, smart environment, smart people, smart living, and smart movements in the 1990s (alberto vanolo, 2013).
management (Auci, Sabrina; Mundula, Luigi, Sep 2012).
So although Smart City has different definitions which some
According to this definition, smart economy is an aspect that of them have individual elements and characters that cause
could be linked to a spirit of innovation, entrepreneurialism, seen them separate from each other, but all of these con-
flexibility or labor market, integration in the international cepts stay on an important issue which is technology based
market and transformability. Smart mobility refers to a local solutions of todays cities problems. For example, in digital
and supra-local accessibility, ITC availability and transport sys- city collecting and publishing vast amount of real and digital
tems that are modern and sustainable. Smart management is information of actual physical city in virtual space need fairly
related to participation in decision-making processes, trans- heavy technology network infrastructures. Communication
parency of governance systems, availability of public services infrastructures with innovative online services are technolog-
and quality of political strategies. Smart environment can be ical features of the information city to connect different parts
understood in terms of attractiveness of natural conditions, of community. Similarly, using equipments in streets, bridges
lack of pollution and sustainable management of resources. and building of the ubiquitous city for getting environmental
Smart living involves the quality of life, availability of cultural and energy data of the city can take place only with high-end
and educational services, tourist attractions, social cohesion, technologies. The greatest feature of the Cities which are
healthy environment, personal safety and housing. Smart peo- known as smart cities is, trying to meet their citizens, govern-
ple can be linked to level of qualified population and social ments and businesses needs and cities problems with innova-
capital, flexibility, creativity, tolerance, cosmopolitanism and tive and technological services and also integrating between
participation in social life (Alberto Vanolo, 2013). society and communication technologies. With three com-
ponents the concept of the smart and sustainable city will be
Smart city concept is an unclear concept with various defini- successful. These components are cooperation between the
tions such as ‘digital city’, ‘information city’, ‘ubiquitous city’, public, private sector and universities. The main role of uni-
etc. Digital city is the oldest concept of smart city’s definition. versities is to produce knowledge, to train trained manpower,
Interacting of these digital city inhabitants with information of also is collaborating with companies in the technology field.
a city and also with each other in virtual public space, with public institutions have facilitating role in the development
organizing and sharing digital information of city is the most of innovation and technological support mechanisms (Bilge
important character of these cities. Similarly, the informa- Armatl? Köro?lu, 2012). So many cities worldwide integrated
tion city collects information from localities and delivers it ICT solutions with planning smart city as new stategic devel-
to public via the internet (Jung Hoon Lee,Marguerite Gong opment planning. In summary, which important in ecological
Hancock, Mei-Chih Hu, 3 October 2013). These two city and technological urban areas such as Eco-Viikki (Finland),
concepts try to connect community by using online services Dongtan (China), is energy and technology efficient urban
to meet the needs of different masses, such as governments, planning or achievement of smartness (alberto vanolo, 2013)
ordinary citizens, social groups and businesses. with advanced technology and more green city. So smart city
can not be considered independent from technology. Well, is
According to Jung Hoon Lee (2013), ubiquitous city is an- it conceivable that, technological urban planning, as a sustain-
other term that can be defined as the extension of digital able urban planning?
or information city, which is making data that is ubiqui-
tously available through an embedded urban infrastructure SMART CITY OR SUSTAINABLE SMART CITY
through embedded streets, bridges and buildings (Jung Hoon
Lee,Marguerite Gong Hancock, Mei-Chih Hu, 3 October Since the term of Smart City is continues of the term of sus-
2013). In accordance with these definitions and the other tainable development in recent years, here there is an impor-
definitions in the literature, it is understood that a Smart city tant question of “Will these technology based solutions really
is a comprehensive description that comprise different sides improve the economic, social and environmental sustainability
66 PLANLAMA

of the cities in the future?”, The first step to reach more sus- should be the vision of the urban managers that public and
tainable cities is to reduce the energy use and greenhouse gas private sector actors are in coordination with each other,
emission in cities. According to Anna Karmes, reducing green than the case of competition with other cities.
house gas emission should be involved in six sectors of the
city: energy, transportation, agriculture, building, manufactur- For Anna Kramers et al., it may be with using ITC solutions by
ing and consumer services (Anna Karmers, Mattias Höjerö dematerialization, demobilization, mass customization, intelli-
Nina Lövehagen, Josefin Wangel, 2014). Smart city using ITC gent operation, and soft transformation (Anna Karmers, Mat-
and technology based solutions for its problems. Sustainable tias Höjerö Nina Lövehagen, Josefin Wangel, 2014) that the
development of a city depends on different aspects such as its problems of cities will be solved in a distant future. Anyway
local context factors, geographical location of a city and eco- we shouldn’t ignore the possible negative impacts of these
nomic situation of it. So how cities are developed and man- technologies within this process of being smart and green
aged is important for sustainable development and in order city. In addition to this criticism, we should consider the im-
to reach much smarter and greener cities there should be use pact of gathering data of real time city and synchronism and
most ecological solutions for more reducing carbon footprint connected with society on peoples freedom with increasing
of today’s cities. As described before the concept of smart control and authority and declining democracy, beside the
city, combine modern technology factors within conventional increase of safety.
framework. Since common and conventional framework of
cities and traditional urban planning solutions can’t answer
REFERENCES
cities sustainable needs for today and future generations,
wonder if producing urban-based ITC solutions which use 1. Schubert, A, Lang, I. (2005). The literature aftermath of the Brundland
lots of energy resources will provide cities sustainabilities? report our common future. A scientometric study based on citations in
science and social science journals. Environment, Development and Sus-
CONCLUSION tainability. 1-8.
2. Vanolo, A, (2013), Smart mentality: the smart city as a disciplinary strat-
Planning of smart cities is in the agenda of policy makers egy. Urban Studies, 1-16.
and urban planners because they agree on the concept of 3. Karmers, A, Höjerö, M, Lövehagen, N, Wangel, J. (2014). Smart sustain-
smart city which helps cities better use of their resources able cities-exploring ITC solutions for reduced energy use in cities. Envi-
with regard to sustainability. But how will cities’ performance ronmental Modelling & Software, 1-11.
be with this pervasive use of ITC? Because of the different 4. Auci, S, Mundula, L. (2012). Smart cities and a stochastic frontier analy-
aspects of the city influence the planning process of creating sis: a comparison among European Cities. Social Sciences: Comprehen-
a smarter and greener city ‘What is the exact guideline of sive Works.
planning smart sustainable city for city managers?’ And ‘Are 5. Lee, JH, Hancock, MG, Hu, MC. (2013). Towards an effective frame-
work for building smart cities: Lessons from Seoul and San Francisco.
these simultaneously data of all areas of the smart city impact
Technological Forecasting and Social Change.
peoples freedom’, are some question in the case of smart city
6. Armatlı Köroğlu, B, Ersoy, M (2012). Kentsel planlama ansiklopedik
and sustainable smart city definition because of its prelimi-
sözlük, Ninova yayınları, 2012
nary stage.
7. OECD. (2012). Environmental outlook to 2050: the consequence of in-
action.
Despite all these questions, it is a fact that central and local 8. Neirotti, P, De Marco, A, Cagliano, AC, Mangano, G, Scorrano, F. (2014).
governments of the cities all around the world try to become Current trends in smart city initiatives: some stylised facts. Cities, Pages
both smarter and greener. This tendency looks more like 25–36.
competition among cities which encouraged with companies 9. Dimitri, S, Baccarne, B, De Marez, L, Mechant, P. (2012). Smart ideas
on the market for ITC solutions. Even though this can be for smart cities: Investigating crowdsourcing for generating and selecting
a way of revitalizing economic opportunities in global com- ideas for ICT innovation in a city context. Journal of Theoretical and Ap-
petition market, designing more green and sustainable cities plied Electronic Commerce Research, 49-62.