Real “Smart Cities”: Insights from Civitas PROSPERITY

A city does not need to be smart, but to allow people be, behave, live and work smart(er). Furthermore, smart should not be necessarily equalled to high technology, but to the sound management, communication and use of available resources, be they tangible or intangible. Anyway our evolution cannot be limited to technology, even if the latter has become unavoidable. If not accompanied by a comprehensive perspective and coherent management, technology may rather block than facilitate resilience and sustainable urban development. Not always the most technically advanced and expensive solutions are the best (most effective) ones or frequently they cannot work alone, needing to be complemented by soft / lower-cost measures. Moreover,even if the actual “smart city” paradigm would be accepted, there do not seem to be enough resources (especially primary ones) to provide high-tech for everybody (WWF, 2018). In this case high-tech might be replaced by smart-tech staying for innovative solutions of best coping with given situations no matter the level of scientific, cultural, economic and behavioural advancement. These are some of the conclusions of a recent ongoing project funded through Horizon 2020, pleading for a global integrated perspective and providing the appropriate tools to sustainably shape and enhance it. Being built in response to the challenge “Real Smart Cities. Best practices and concepts for the future”, the present contribution informs on how Civitas PROSPERITY (applied research project) integrated these principles and produced innovation in the field of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP). The focus is on bright solutions that can be equally extended and applied in other fields of urban management beyond mobility, such as energy, land-use, cultural heritage etc