Chapter 1 - Introducing shaping smart for better cities

Abstract

This chapter introduces the ethos and approach to Shaping Smart for Better Cities and highlights the main overarching themes that have emerged from the chapters. It starts from a declaration of the effort and multidisciplinary challenge the editors have set, by bringing the overall theme into the nonproprietary territory of reflecting on “better places” rather than on discipline-specific issues. Doing this has allowed this collection to be diverse and pluralistic. It has also foregrounded a series of important and general issues and needs in the search for a more holistic and comprehensive perspective on the making of smart place. These include the crucial need for a deep and meaningful grounding of smart initiatives within their already existing spatial and social context, shaping place as a whole. This in turn can be looked at from the designer’s viewpoint and from a community coproduction perspective, and the volume is organized along these two very much inseparable sides of the same, placemaking coin.