TRACK 5: Smart futures and sustainability

congress team:  Dorota Kamrowska-Zaluska, Poland & Awais Piracha, Australia

Smart cities are appearing everywhere and are sometimes little more than marketing devices for new towns. Yet there is no doubt that all cities are moving towards automatisation and data-driven provision of services. In addition, it is thought that smart technologies will drive cities' economic capacity and global position in future. Within this frenzy of change, we need a pause to explore critical theories and successful case studies on smart cities, smart regions and smart communities. We need to understand how virtual worlds (and our data alter egos) will interact and shape the real one; and how disruptive technologies (block-chain, crypto-money, robotisation of production, drones, hyperloop, autonomous mobility) will change the management and planning of cities and urban life. How will it change the urban form and public space? What will be the habits and behaviours of urban citizens?

What kind of policy is needed so that smart technologies answer citizens' needs and promote equitable solutions? How to encourage co-creation in the post-digital era? How to protect people from disruptive virtual worlds?

Sessions:

Session 5.1 Mobility in Smart Cities

Case studies in this track explore how smartness can assist in improving mobility. The topics in this area range from electric vehicles, smart mobility, promotion of non-motorised transport, freight analysis to autonomous vehicles and underlying themes in this sub-area.

Session 5.2 Knowledge Economy and Innovation Milieu

Papers in this session explore how new knowledge and innovation can lead to enhanced smartness and sustainability in the city. Some of the topics explored in this session are Green Heritage Tourist Circuit Design, transforming Indonesian petroleum cities into innovative green economies, improving space structure of traditional resources-based cities in China, and building energy efficiency in urban planning.

Session 5.3 Cities of Future ? User-oriented Services

This session looks into how user-oriented services can be provided in cities using big data and other smart technologies. Use of big data such as mobile phone, smart travel card and other large data in planning is fast emerging as a very promising area of study. Papers in this track present case studies of big data use for providing user-oriented services for improving various planning related issues such as land use, housing provision, mega projects, commercial activities and more.

Session 5.4 Co-design and Participation in Smart Cities

Papers in this session present case studies which discuss how to ensure participation of citizens/beneficiaries in planning projects. Research in this session grapples with the following questions: Are citizens able to participate in co-creation or at least consultations related to shaping smart polices and solutions? Are their voices being heard? What are the instruments ensuring that quest for smartness does engage with the marginalized? Or is smartness leaving sections of society even further behind?

Session 5.5 Smart City Strategies in Urban Planning and Design

Along with the positives that come with densely populated cities in terms of human capital and increased productivity, there also arises the need to tackle increasing challenges such as traffic management, access to public resources, and waste management. The focus of this session is to examine how urban planning and urban design professionals are responding to these challenges within an ICT-led smart city framework.

Session 5.6 Smart Public Spaces

Papers in this session discuss how public spaces can be made to interact and inform public in matters that are useful and easy to understand for the public. In particular, how can planning and design professionals engage design strategies in conjunction with the new ICT technologies to make outdoor public spaces smart?

Session 5.7 (Special Session) Cities and Digitisation: Perspectives and Challenges of the Smart City Technologies on Urban Planning and Design

The session will be chaired by Southeast University of China, based on the outcomes of the ISOCARP-SEU International Digital Urban Design Week that happened in June 2019 in Nanjing, China.  The perspectives, impacts and future challenges of urban studies, planning and design disciplines will be discussed under the angle of digitization, big data, Internet of Things and blockchain communities, with practical illustrations.