The academic interest in social concepts in city contexts, such as sense of place and social capital, has been growing in the last decades. We present a systematic literature review that confirms the strong relationship between sense of place and social capital, from a social sciences point-of-view. It also reveal that little attention has been paid to their spatial dimensions at the urban level, thereby missing the chance to exploit socio-spatial knowledge to improve the day-to-day life in and functioning of the city (e.g. in planning processes, citizen participation, civic engagement). We therefore examine sense of place and social capital from a Geographic Information Science (GISc) viewpoint, and present a formal conceptualization and initial theoretical framework which explicitly describes both concepts, and the relation between them, within the context of a city and from a spatial point of view. | INTRODUCTIONSeventeen years have passed since Robert Putnam (2000) pointed out the potential of understanding social capital (SC) as a geographical concept. Since then, more authors have recognized the urgency of a better spatial understanding of the environmental psychological concept "sense of place" (SOP) (Jorgensen & Stedman, 2011;Stedman, 2003).Currently, governments and cities are starting to see the importance of the ability of citizens, firms and organizations to manage and be aware of their spatial footprint in the city (Roche, 2014). On the other hand, in Geographic Information Science (GISc), the importance of place seems to have grown with the development of new concepts such as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) (Goodchild, 2007), geosocial applications, Geoweb 2.0 and other related concepts. Hence, interesting and potentially useful connections are emerging between social science concepts (SOP and SC) and cities from a GISc point of view, that, nowadays, we are not able to operationalize. Fortunately, the surge of smart cities, with associated Information and Communication Technology (ICT) research and tools, allows new ways to manage the urban environment, which enables new channels of communication. Moreover, geospatial technologies are omnipresent in these new tools, thus demonstrating the growth of interest in the spatial dimension of social con- are often disconnected from society's needs and aspirations (Calzada & Cobo, 2015;Vanolo, 2016). The spatial inclusion in the urban context of citizens' social aspects, such as our feelings, perceptions, and behaviors, form the path toward citizen-centric models and frameworks based on a social-spatial view of a city; that is, it provides an understanding of the social domain (SOP and SC) and its spatial dimensions. Furthermore, we emphasize that GISc can help in compensating for this pervasive lack of social-spatial analysis, by providing theoretical foundation and practical tools to represent and map subjective feelings and experiences.Nowadays, cities use their hierarchical administrative boundaries to deliver their policies and actions...

Place, as a concept, is subject to a lively, ongoing discussion involving different disciplines. However, most of these discussions approach the issue without a geographic perspective, which is the natural habitat of a place. This study contributes to this discourse through the exploratory examination of urban intelligence utilizing the geographical relationship between sense of place and social capital at the collective and individual level. Using spatial data collected through a web map-based survey, we perform an exhaustive examination of the spatial relationship between sense of place and social capital. We found a significant association between sense of place and social capital from a spatial point of view. Sense of place and social capital spatial dimensions obtain a non-disjoint relationship for approximately half of the participants and a spatial clustering when they are aggregated. This research offers a new exploratory perspective for place studies in the context of cities, and simultaneously attempts to depict a platial–social network based on sense of place and social capital, which cities currently lack.

In the Canadian Smart Cities Challenge contest, smart city proposals were created using traditional citizen engagement actions, such as face-to-face citizen meetings. • The use of transactional methods of citizen engagement, such as mobile apps and social media, is secondary in the development of smart city proposals. • Regardless of the outcome of smart city proposals, the process of developing the proposal should meaningfully engage citizens and resident stakeholders. Governments around the world are developing smart city projects, with the aim to realize diverse goals of increased efficiency, sustainability, citizen engagement, and improved delivery of services. The processes through which these projects are conceptualized vary dramatically, with potential implications for how citizens are involved or engaged. This research examines the 20 finalists in the Canadian Smart Cities Challenge, a Canadian federal government contest held from 2017 to 2019 to disburse funding in support of smart city projects. We analyzed each of the finalist proposals, coding all instances of citizen engagement used to develop the proposal. A significant majority of the proposals used traditional types of citizen engagement, notably citizen meetings, round tables, and workshops, to develop their smart city plans. We also noted the use of transactional forms of citizen engagement, such as apps, and the use of social media. Despite the general rhetoric of innovation in the development of smart cities, this research finds that citizens are most commonly engaged in traditional ways. This research provides cues for governments that are developing smart city projects, placing an emphasis on the importance of the process of smart city development, and not simply the product.

The relationship between sense of place, social capital and civic engagement has been studied in different disciplines. However, their association has been less examined, and their spatial relationship has been analyzed even less. This study contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between these three concepts (i.e., sense of place, social capital and civic engagement). Furthermore, we analyze the crucial role that the spatial relationship between them plays. Using spatial data collected through a web map-based application, we adopt structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques to assess the repercussion that sense of place has on social capital and how the latter affects civic engagement. We find that sense of place is significant and positively correlated with social capital, while the latter also significantly explains civic engagement at the individual level. Furthermore, we observe a better statistical performance in almost all cases when a spatial relationship between the three constructs exists. Our research leverages SEM techniques, Geographic Information Science (GISc) methods, and participatory methodology to show the spatial connection between sense of place and social capital to explain civic engagement. Deriving and quantifying such meaning allows us to highlight the importance of their spatial dimension in city processes such as participation.

The spatial representation of a city is typically formed by top‐down jurisdictional boundaries. A parallel approach would be to consider representing a city based on platial characteristics, that is, a bottom‐up landscape created through individual and collectively derived representations. This study contributes to this discourse through the exploratory examination of the ecology notions of home range and habitat applied to humans in an urban context. Using spatial data collected through a WebGIS platform, we employ a spatial definition of sense of place and social capital to understand the platial nature of the city and, simultaneously, defining home range and habitat as platial notions. We found spatial variability among individual home range and habitat and the difficulty of traditional administrative boundaries to represent these areas. This research defines and presents home range and habitat to partially describe the emergent nature of platial theory and explores their operationalization at the urban level.