Cities and Smartness: A Critical Analysis of Opportunities and Risks

The term \u201cSmart City\u201d is to-date widely used little clarity appears in the definition behind that. Several approaches lead to a growing emphasis on the combined use of geographic information and communication technology to build cognitive frameworks in city planning and management. The present paper tackles an effort of defining \u2018smart cities\u2019 and identifying the elements of smartness but also the critical aspects related to the current interpretation of the term. In particular the risks of considering also the technological layer of the Smart City as an innovative element is observed, highlighting on the contrary the need to consider Smart Cities in terms of a major urban planning effort to coordinate and harmonize the different urban players sustained by ICT instruments