Planning in the Era of Information and Communication Technologies. Discussing the 'label: Smart' in South-European cities with environmental and socio-economic challenges

In the last decades, planners have explored various approaches to sustainable urban planning and development. Scholars widely argued the limits to uncontrolled physical growth, to the exploitation of resources, and the necessity of finding alternatives. Within the general framework of sustainability, urban planners are in the search for approaches aimed at coping with current uncertainties that cities have to face, based on the deterioration of natural-socio-cultural environments and uncontrollable economic and financial flows. Notwithstanding, the rise of post-industrial urban economies has introduced Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as successful devices that are proposed for the fulfillment of sustainability and for the interpretation of uncertainties. Then, the "label: Smart" has emerged as a specific approach to sustainability based on ICTs as opportunities to create networks, to collect a wide amount of data (the so-called "big-data"), to improve urban planning. The rising debate about Smart Cities and Communities is widely supported by the EU through the homonym programs, partnerships, and so forth. Meanwhile, various corporations are investing in order to spread out the message that ICTs are powerful devices for the pursuit of better life. Scholars such as Townsend (2001), Allwinkle et al. (2011), Batty (2013), Anthopoulos et al. (2013) and Bettencourt (2013) have focused the potentials generated by the relationship amongst big data, networks and urban planning. On another side, some critical reflections about the rhetoric use of the term "Smart" have been proposed, such as in Hollands (2008). At the local scale, a growing number of cities are adopting the "label: Smart" through initiatives supported by administrators and non-governmental organizations, while some skeptics argue that the "label: Smart" is just a trend. Within this variegated cultural framework, experts agree on one point: ICTs are not a panacea; ICTs alone cannot solve any problem. The central question is: "does the "label: Smart" apply anywhere at the same way? This paper presents lessons learnt through an empirical research conducted in three metropolitan cities in South Italy aimed at exploring how the framework "Smart" may improve urban planning in cities with lacks in planning processes. Authors argue that organized networks of citizens and institutions are needed in order to improve the smartness of a city, using technologies as supports for more inclusive and informed decision making processes, i.e. as a tool not as a goal for an effective smartness. The Paper discusses primary findings of a Research Project conducted at University of Naples, DICEA, funded by EU ((PON 04A2_00120 R & C Axis II), "Smart Energy Master - Toward Energy-based approaches for Regional Planning". Methodology is based on case study whose sources of evidence are: quantitative indicators; archival documents, excerpts of key-stakeholders' interviews. Findings show the two-fold use of technologies for cities: isolated and episodic experiments, or coordinated and well-connected initiatives, being the second experiences feasible approaches for improving urban planning in challenging South-European cities. References Anthopoulos L.G., Vakali A. (2013), "Urban Planning and Smart Cities: Interrelations and Reprocities" The Future Internet: 178-189, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin. Batty, Michael (2013), "Big data, smart cities and city planning" Dialogues in Human Geography 3: 274/279. Bettencourt, Louis (2013), The Uses of Big Data in Cities. Santa Fe Institute Working Paper, Santa Fe. Allwinkle, Sam, and Peter Cruickshank (2011), "Creating smart-er cities: An overview." Journal of Urban Technology 18.2: 1-16. Townsend, A. (2001), "Network Cities and the Global Structure of the Internet." American Behavioral Scientist 10.44: 1697-1716 Hollands, Robert (2008), "Will the real Smart City please stand up?" City 12.3: 303/320.