Incorporating a Systemic and Foresight Approach into Smart City Initiatives: The Case of Spanish Cities

Abstract

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, cities face serious societal, economic, environmental, and governance challenges. Under the term “Smart City,” numerous technology-based initiatives are emerging to help cities face contemporary challenges while the concept itself is evolving towards a more holistic approach. Nevertheless, the capability of smart initiatives to provide an integrated vision of our cities is still very limited. Eventually, many of these initiatives do not fulfill satisfactorily their initial objectives because they fail to understand the complexity, diversity, and uncertainty that characterize contemporary cities. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to display an urban functional system, capable of interpreting the city in a more holistic way, and to incorporate foresight tools so as to formulate Smart City visions in a more participatory way with the involvement of local stakeholders.

Keywords:

• smart city
• urban complexity
• systemic approach
• foresight tools
• urban visions

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

José-Miguel Fernández-Güell is deputy director of research at the School of Architecture, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain. He is a professor in the Urban and Regional Planning Department at UPM.

Marta Collado-Lara is a doctoral student in the Urban and Regional Planning Department at UPM.

Silvia Guzmán-Araña is a doctoral student in the Urban and Regional Planning Department at UPM.

Victoria Fernández-Añez is a doctoral student in the Urban and Regional Planning Department at UPM.