The document discusses different terms used for smart cities like sustainable, green, digital, intelligent, and resilient cities. It notes that while terms are not interchangeable, "sustainable city" is most common and "low-carbon city" is a subset of sustainable city, whereas smart city is a new concept focused on technology. The document emphasizes that smart cities should enable citizens to actively participate in their community through activities like providing feedback, adopting sustainable lifestyles, and volunteering. It provides an example of Hampshire running successful public engagement for its new waste strategy. Finally, it suggests engagement is important and citizens may want more involvement in their cities.

1. Dr Richard Bull
With Marouane Azennoud
ICTPI June 2015
Smart Participation for Social
Learning

2. What’s in a name? (Jong et al 2015)
• Sustainable cities
• Green cities
• Digital cities
• Smart cities
• Intelligent cities
• Information cities
• Knowledge cities
• Resilient cities
• Eco-cities
• Low-carbon cities
• Liveable cities
• Low-carbon liveable
cities

3. “Do any of them lead to: better city,
better life”?
Jong et al found:
• The terms are not interchangeable
• ‘Sustainable city’ is the most common term
• ‘Low-carbon city’ is viewed as a sub-set of sustainable
city whereas smart city is viewed as a new concept with
particular connotations around integrated building
and technological fixes.

4. Industry

5. The concept of a Smart City goes way beyond
the transactional relationships between citizen
and service provider.
It is essentially enabling and encouraging the
citizen to become a more active and
participative member of the community, for
example, providing feedback on the quality of
services or the state of roads and the built
environment, adopting a more sustainable and
healthy lifestyle, volunteering for social activities
or supporting minority groups.
Furthermore, citizens need employment and
“Smart Cities” are often attractive locations to
live, work and visit.
UK Policy?

6. EU Policy?

7. Is this a smart city? Narratives of city
smartness and their critical assessment
(Huber and Mayer 2015)
1. The Instrumental Perspective: Information And
Communication Technology For Improved Resource
Efficiency
2. The Administrative Perspective: Backcasting,
Transversal, Systemic Action And Measurement Of
Results
3. The Governance-perspective: The Learning,
Interactive And Creative City

8. “When citizens become
involved in working out
a mutually acceptable
solution to a project or
problem that affects
their community and
their personal lives, they
mature into responsible
democratic citizens and
reaffirm democracy”
Tom Webler et al
Engagement

9. Examples of participatory processes (adapted from Petts and Leach 2001)
Purpose Classification Example
Education and information
provision
Traditional Leaflets, advertising,
unstaffed exhibits/displays
Information and feedback Traditional Surveys/questionnaires,
staffed exhibits/displays
Involvement and
consultation
Innovative consultative Workshops, focus groups
Extended involvement Innovative deliberative Community Advisory
Committees, Citizens Juries,
Deliberative Mapping.

10. An example of Smart Citizen engagement
• Hampshire ran out of landfill
• Experienced a failure (a failed planning application)
• Decided to ‘seriously’ engage the community
on their new waste strategy
• Formed a partnership
• Insisted on
further public engagement

11. Arelational framework of engagement

12. The effects of engagement on learning
Partnership working is
capable of achievements
that would not be feasible
if individual partners
worked in isolation.
(Frederickson 2007)
• Technical benefits to
management of waste
• Transfer of knowledge
• De-politicised waste
• Healthy context/
environment for
engagement and
behaviour change (at both
individual and
organisational level)

13. Issues
to
ponder.
.
.
• Whose definition of a smart city?
• Who’s benefiting (and/or profiting) from the smart city?
• Where does the ‘power’ lie?
• Engagement is more than ‘information’ and ‘feedback’
• Of course the obvious question is this – do citizens want
greater involvement in their cities?
• The lessons from Hampshire would suggest you can’t
afford not to

14. References/further reading
• Bull, R., Lemon, M., Everitt, D., & Stuart, G. (2015). Moving beyond feedback:
Energy behaviour and local engagement in the United Kingdom. Energy
Research & Social Science 8 32-40
• Bull, R., Irvine, K., Rieser, M., Fleming, P (2013). Are people the problem or
the solution? A critical look at the rise of the smart/intelligent building and the
role of ICT enabled engagement. ECEEE Summer Study Conference
Proceedings 2013, pp. 1135-1145; 5A-079-13
• Bull, R., Petts, J., & Evans, J. (2008). "Social Learning from Public
Engagement: Dreaming the impossible?" Journal of Environmental
Management and Planning 51(5): 703-718.
• Jong et al (2015) Sustainable-smart-resilient-low carbon-knowledge cities;
making sense of a multitude of concepts promoting sustainable urbanization.
Journal of Cleaner Production.
• Huber A., & Mayer, I. (2015) Is this a smart city? Narratives of city smartness
and their critical assessment. ECEEE 2015