On Being Smart about Cities: Eight Considerations for a New Urban Planning and Design

This paper aims to assess whether the idea of smart cities possibly contributes to the quest for the sustainable and resilient urban system we need. It reflects on the motivations for and challenges of past transitions to appreciate the untameable complexity and multifaceted nature of urban transitions that the smart city discourse may be ignoring. The author emphasized that smart urbanism is an agenda for planning and design and therefore shared eight considerations for smart city planning and design, including (a) “Decoupling” as the strategic orientation; (b) A persuasive story line about the future through planning; (c) Urban metabolisms as a framework for strategic decision-making; (d) Focus on the default in infrastructure; (e) Beyond the notion of a “smart city from a box”; (f) A new open and collaborative politics; (g) Smart urbanism is about constant learning, inspiration, measuring, analysing and readjusting; and (h) Create a globally networked urbanism