Abstract
The image of the Smart City recalls Lynch’s “Image of the City” (1960) and the ways in which urban spaces are perceived by the community and users. The categories presented there hold a physical, tangible component, related to the spatial and material aspects of the city. Talking about Smart Cities, a little formulated and tackled question refers to what the image of the Smart City is, and how it is possible to represent it. The debate on the Smart City regards mainly the digital component and technological aspects, often not visible or perceivable, neglecting the more humanistic aspects and implications. We carry on a reflection on the “image of the smart city”. We propose some possible evolutions of the concept and research directions, in light of the new challenges posed by COVID-19 and the pandemic, as well as the need for a more human-centric approach to planning and managing urban areas and human settlements.
Highlights
The aim of the paper is a reflection on today’s meaning and representation of the SmartCity
The starting point is its visualization and representation, for proposing a framework for comparing both the evolution of the concept, and trying a possible categorization of the different Smart City models so far encountered during nearly two decades of talks, modelling, policies, and applications to the urban environment
After the observation in the previous paragraph on the evolutions of the Smart City from the technological, towards the human and humanistic point of view, we propose a framework for categorizing the different ongoing processes involving the transformation of the cities towards a “Smart” framework
Summary
The starting point is its visualization and representation, for proposing a framework for comparing both the evolution of the concept, and trying a possible categorization of the different Smart City models so far encountered during nearly two decades of talks, modelling, policies, and applications to the urban environment. The research aims at categorizing, in time and space, the different stages of evolution of the Smart City. This is put it into a framework of a model capable of meeting the needs of different cities around the world, but allowing, at the same time, to understand if, and what of, the different “models” could be more or less suitable for a certain urban context.
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