Smarter Decisions for Smarter Cities: Lessons Learned from Strategic Plans

This chapter presents challenges and methodological insights from applying smart city approaches in the context of public decision-making. It discusses the smart city as a changing and fuzzy concept which expresses the need for cities to find ICT-driven, intelligent and sustainable solutions to a panoply of urban challenges, covering many dimensions: smart economy; smart mobility; smart environment; smart people; smart living; and smart governance. In the urban planning context, where these dimensions need to be considered in an integrated manner, the smart approach relies on the ability to link infrastructures, services and users, increasing the flexibility and transparency of urban policies and decision-making. In this context, smart approaches must move beyond an urban labelling phenomenon and be grounded in a (horizontal) urban policy practice. Four Portuguese strategic plans are used as empirical examples of improving decision-making by incorporating ICT in the process design. The focus is on the methodological contributions and on illustrating how the smart city concept can be adjusted to analyse concrete policy approaches in the complex system of spatial interactions that form modern urban environments.