From Assessment to Implementation: Design Considerations for Scalable Decision-Support Solutions in Sustainable Urban Development

Abstract

Cities have to face the challenges of steady population growth, the related increase in energy and resource demands, intensifying climate change impacts and rapid technological development. To handle these complex challenges and promote sustainable development, the smart city approach – data-driven planning based on emergent ICT technologies – has been gaining prevalence. However, the lack of shared standards, frameworks, and evidence-based decision-support tools limit the collaboration among smart city actors and the utility of the mainly business-driven technical solutions. This study explores the scalability of indicator systems into a shared framework for smart and sustainable cities by practice-based research during the development of the SmartCEPS project. SmartCEPS is an assessment system and maturity model based on key performance indicators (KPIs) for small- and medium-size European cities. In its architecture, indicators are organized in a causal network capable of capturing synergies, co-benefits and payoffs of decisions; structural metadata provides the means for a gradual customisation of the system; and finally, the indicator pool is scalable by complexity, ensuring different levels of detail in assessments. The study concludes that gradual customisation, network organisation, and open-ended scalability are the proxies for developing decision-support instruments from KPIs.

What are the conditions to become smart?

“…It is important to measure the performance of cities in the framework of the SC concept. However, researchers should not be solely engaged with the development of such indicator systems unless they are directly linked with SC development activities, and those activities are clearly with the change of status range of certain performance areas (Bukovszki et al 2019). In most cases, these rankings are indistinguishable from other competitiveness rankings.…”

Challenges and Solutions for Organizational Design in Urban Digitalization

“…Distortions between technology push and application pull results in a mismatch between supply and demand. The imbalance is partly because of the difficulty to articulate SC expectations in terms of product specification (Bukovszki, Apró, Khoja, Essig, & Reith, 2019). Suppliers also find it challenging to create new products and services for specific city needs, as they are more inclined to work with their existing portfolios.…”

“…Horizontal action among practitioners is desired. Focus group participant also expressed that SC frameworks choose between offering comparability and accuracy, since adding more and more contextual information is needed during the planning process (standardization and customization conundrum) (Bukovszki et al, 2019). Another issue is ad-hoc approaches, which is closely related to the lack of inter-organizational collaboration and meaningful engagement of stakeholders.…”