The anatomy of the data-driven smart sustainable city: instrumentation, datafication, computerization and related applications

Abstract

We are moving into an era where instrumentation, datafication, and computerization are routinely pervading the very fabric of cities, coupled with the interlinking, integration, and coordination of their systems and domains. As a result, vast troves of data are generated and exploited to operate, manage, organize, and regulate urban life, or a deluge of contextual and actionable data is produced, analyzed, and acted upon in real time in relation to various urban processes and practices. This data-driven approach to urbanism is increasingly becoming the mode of production for smart sustainable cities. In other words, a new era is presently unfolding wherein smart sustainable urbanism is increasingly becoming data-driven. However, topical studies tend to deal mostly with data-driven smart urbanism while barely exploring how this approach can improve and advance sustainable urbanism under what is labeled 'data-driven smart sustainable cities. ' Having a threefold aim, this paper first examines how data-driven smart sustainable cities are being instrumented, datafied, and computerized so as to improve, advance, and maintain their contribution to the goals of sustainable development through more optimized processes and enhanced practices. Second, it highlights and substantiates the great potential of big data technology for enabling such contribution by identifying, synthesizing, distilling, and enumerating the key practical and analytical applications of this advanced technology in relation to multiple urban systems and domains with respect to operations, functions, services, designs, strategies, and policies. Third, it proposes, illustrates, and describes a novel architecture and typology of data-driven smart sustainable cities. The overall aim of this study suits thematic analysis as a research approach. I argue that smart sustainable cities are becoming knowable, controllable, and tractable in new dynamic ways thanks to urban science, responsive to the data generated about their systems and domains by reacting to the analytical outcome of many aspects of urbanity in terms of optimizing and enhancing operational functioning, management, planning, design, development, and governance in line with the goals of sustainable development. The proposed architecture, which can be replicated, tested, and evaluated in empirical research, will add additional depth to studies in the field. This study intervenes in the existing scholarly conversation by bringing new insights to and informing the ongoing debate on smart sustainable urbanism in light of big data science and analytics. This work serves to inform city stakeholders about the pivotal role of data-driven analytic thinking in smart sustainable urbanism practices, as well as draws special attention to the enormous benefits of the

Smart Eco-City Strategies and Solutions for Sustainability: The Cases of Royal Seaport, Stockholm, and Western Harbor, Malmö, Sweden

“…Indeed, a recent research wave has started to focus on smartening up sustainable urban forms by amalgamating the landscapes of and the approaches to sustainable cities and smart cities in a variety of ways in the hopes of reaching the optimal level of sustainability ( [2,3]), especially through promoting the 'eco-city' and 'sustainable city' initiatives in their more recent data-driven smart incarnations. Many urban development approaches emphasize the role of big data technologies and their novel applications as an advanced form of ICT in improving sustainability (e.g., [20,21,106,[109][110][111]). Therefore, the field of sustainable urbanism needs to extend its boundaries and broaden its horizons beyond the ambit of the built form and ecological design of cities to include technological innovation opportunities and computational capabilities by unlocking and exploiting the tremendous potential of advanced ICT for advancing sustainability.…”

“…Therefore, the main goal of this descriptive case study is to assess the selected cases in detail and in depth based on that articulation of a descriptive theory. This research design intends to describe the phenomenon of the eco-city in its real-world context [21,51]. Worth noting is that there is not enough evidence to support this phenomenon or explain how or why it works.…”

“…One architect from the Municipality of Malmö said that: 'monitoring the performance and evaluating the success of the sustainable systems continues to be challenging due to their complexity as well as cost.' It is necessary to incorporate the energy system, the waste management system, buildings and facilities, and the transport system as socio-technical systems together with ICT solutions [48] through a distributed infrastructure of computing components, resources, and interfaces that facilitate the management of urban infrastructures and services [20,21,82,83].…”

“…More in-depth knowledge on planning and design practices is needed to capture the vision of sustainable urban development, and so too is a deeper understanding of the multi-faceted processes of change to achieve sustainable cities. This entails conceptualizing multiple pathways towards attaining this vision and developing a deeper understanding of the interplay between socio-political and techno-scientific solutions for sustainable urban forms (Williams 2010 and Bibri 2019) [11,13], especially those involving engineering and applied sciences related to big data science and analytics and the underpinning technologies (Bibri 2019) [21,127]. In this regard, the core questions that would potentially broaden our knowledge on how eco-cities can harness their potential through the underlying design strategies and technology innovations and ultimately balance the different dimensions of sustainability in planning and development practices include To what extent can advanced technologies support joined-up planning, a form of integration which enables system-wide sustainability effects to be tracked, understood, and built into the very responses and designs characterizing the operations and functions of the eco-city district, especially in relation to energy, waste, transport, and utilities?…”

A scholarly backcasting approach to a novel model for smart sustainable cities of the future: strategic problem orientation

“…In particular, the generation of colossal amounts of urban data and the development of sophisticated data analytics for understanding, monitoring, probing, regulating, and planning the city are the most significant aspects of smart cities that are being embraced by sustainable cities to improve, advance, and maintain their contribution to the goals of sustainable development (e.g., Bibri 2018b, 2019b; Bibri and Krogstie 2017b, 2018). For supra-national states, national governments, and city officials, smart cities offer the enticing potential of environmental and socio-economic development, and the renewal of urban centers as hubs of innovation and research (e.g., Batty et al 2012;Bibri 2019d;Kitchin 2014;Kourtit et al 2012;Townsend 2013). While there are several main characteristics of smart cities as evidenced by industry and government literature (e.g., Hollands 2018; Kitchin 2014), the one that this futures study, and thus this paper, is concerned with is environmental, economic, and social sustainability.…”