The Sciences Underlying Smart Sustainable Urbanism: Unprecedented Paradigmatic and Scholarly Shifts in Light of Big Data Science and Analytics

Abstract

As a new area of science and technology (S&T), big data science and analytics embodies an unprecedentedly transformative power—which is manifested not only in the form of revolutionizing science and transforming knowledge, but also in advancing social practices, catalyzing major shifts, and fostering societal transitions. Of particular relevance, it is instigating a massive change in the way both smart cities and sustainable cities are understood, studied, planned, operated, and managed to improve and maintain sustainability in the face of expanding urbanization. This relates to what has been dubbed data-driven smart sustainable urbanism, an emerging approach that is based on a computational understanding of city systems that reduces urban life to logical and algorithmic rules and procedures, as well as employs a new scientific method based on data-intensive science, while also harnessing urban big data to provide a more holistic and integrated view and synoptic intelligence of the city. This paper examines the unprecedented paradigmatic and scholarly shifts that the sciences underlying smart sustainable urbanism are undergoing in light of big data science and analytics and the underlying enabling technologies, as well as discusses how these shifts intertwine with and affect one another in the context of sustainability. I argue that data-intensive science, as a new epistemological shift, is fundamentally changing the scientific and practical foundations of urban sustainability. In specific terms, the new urban science—as underpinned by sustainability science and urban sustainability—is increasingly making cities more sustainable, resilient, efficient, and livable by rendering them more measurable, knowable, and tractable in terms of their operational functioning, management, planning, design, and development.

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

“…It is worth pointing that cities are complex systems par excellence and hence dynamically changing and adaptive; self-organizing social networks embedded in space and enabled by urban infrastructure, activities, and services; and developed by multitudinous collective and individual decisions from top-down and bottom-up [61,131]. In view of that, while computational and scientific approaches are very relevant and important for understanding and dealing with the different aspects of urban complexity through big data analytics and the underpinning technologies, they remain inadequate to solve all urban problems ( [132,133]). These are often best solved through political/social solutions, citizen participation, and deliberative democracy, rather than technocratic forms of governance [134,135].…”

The emerging data–driven Smart City and its innovative applied solutions for sustainability: the cases of London and Barcelona

“…This is due often to the poor management and utilization of available resources, in addition to the lack of the training of the data analysts. Big data science and analytics is a heavily applied field where the programs offered by academic institutions are inadequate for preparing the data scientists and analysts for the task (Bibri 2019d ;Donoho 2015).…”

A methodological framework for futures studies: integrating normative backcasting approaches and descriptive case study design for strategic data-driven smart sustainable city planning

“…The quest for finding an urban development planning approach that can accommodate the wicked problems of cities, especially in relation to sustainability and urbanization, and overcome the complexity and unpredictability introduced by socio-political factors is increasingly inspiring scholars to combine urban sustainability and sustainability science under what has recently been termed "urban sustainability science." (Bibri 2019c). This term is informed by urban science, a field in which big data science and analytics is practiced, which in turn informs and sustains data-driven smart urbanism.…”

“…The understanding of the city as an instance of socio-ecological systems based on sustainability science principles using a data-driven analytical approach can help address and overcome the challenges associated with the wicked problems related to urban planning and development in the context of sustainability. There is a host of new practices that sustainability science could bring to urban sustainability under the umbrella of data-intensive science, an argument that needs to be developed further and to become part of mainstream debates in urban research, practice, and policy (Bibri 2019c(Bibri , 2020a. This argument is being stimulated by the ongoing discussion and development of the new ideas about the untapped potential of big data science and analytics for advancing sustainability science and urban sustainability, as well as merging them into a holistic framework informed by urban science as a field where data science can be practiced.…”