The educational activities in the Digital Cities and Urban Planning class aim at introducing students to basic understanding of urban innovation and the use of new technologies not only in narrow technical terms, but also in terms of their impacts onto urban policy and social organization at large. Deepening the topic of how complex partnerships and interest groups conceive, develop and deal with digital innovation in a globalized environment implies the investigation of the inter-urban mobility and local adaptations of “successful” policies or “”best practices”. 

Students are expcted to develop/improve

- awareness of the multiple dimensions and complexities of contemporary urban development;
- critical understanding of the technological and social components of urban development;
- awareness of challenges, perspectives and approaches in digital and othertechnologies in planning;
- awareness of the specific role of digital technologies and innovation in contemporary planning;

- managing literature and diverse sources of information;

- developing and articulating analysis, interpretation and more general reflections regarding contemporary urban development, with specific reference to local and international scales. 

Aims and contents

The Smart Cities and Urban Innovation class will provide a theoretical frame of reference for digital technologies, urban innovation, and its socio-political implications drawing on planning, urban studies, and geography literature.

In order to foster an in-depth and critical understanding of urban innovation and multiple planning responses, the class will, on the one hand, present to and involve students in investigating a set of policies such as the smart city, sustainable city, culture-led regeneration, and branded urban projects. On the other hand, the class will develop hands-on activities and exercises referred to spatial planning for urban smartness and community-driven innovation in the digital age. The program will consider several case studies in European, North American, and Asian cities, analyze most recent European and national strategies with reference to the Digital Agenda and other policies. The program will involve international guest speakers in a seminar series on key subjects and will provide students with innovative video-based learning tools. Ad hoc sessions will use flipped classroom methods, spark in-class debates and push students – individually and in small teams – to deepen controversial issues, such as: smartness beyond technological infrastructures; digital citizenship and identity; the transnational circulation or urban projects, and their local impact. Specific "learn to learn" sessions will be dedicated to similar emerging issues.

The course is structured on two distinct yet strictly intertwined modules: “Urban Innovation and Planning” module under the responsibility of Professor Ponzini and the “Smart Cities” module under the responsibility of Professor Concilio.

The mix of theoretical and practical issues discussed and handled by this course will require strong students’ involvement both individually (e.g. readings and short essays) and in small teams.

Urban Innovation and Planning (Professor Davide Ponzini)

In the last decades, cities have been growing with unprecedented interconnectedness. Architects, planners, policy makers, technology providers and developers are ever more linked one to another, thanks to hypermobility and new communication technologies. Similar policy solutions and even development schemes today circulate among different cities on the basis of catchwords (e.g. smart city, eco-city), formats (e.g. Expo, Olympic Games, World Cup and others) or of a “best-practice” rationale (e.g. Bilbao’s regeneration, Vancouver’s sustainability, Dubai’s competitiveness). Local decision-makers often assume that these sorts of urban innovations are problem-free and always positive for cities and their growth.

However, the underestimated problems of the “landing” of such innovations have recently been investigated and critically analyzed. Scholars in different fields (such as urban planning, architecture, political science and urban studies) have shown the economic interests behind transnational networks of firms and experts, traveling policy solutions and technologies, and globally circulating urban policies and architectural projects.  

In particular, the module “Urban Innovation and Planning” held by Professor Ponzini critically considers the global mobility dynamics of such planning innovations, their implications and actual effects at the urban level, which are sometimes problematic. 

The lectures will cover different kinds of innovations (from the smart city to mega-events, from digital design technologies to “green” architectural projects). They aim at involving students and sparking debate about ostensibly neutral planning, design, and technological solutions for contemporary cities.

Smart Cities (Professor Grazia Concilio)

Many cities have re-imagined themselves in terms of smartness and developed relevant urban agendas often driven by a number of funding opportunities made available by national and international programs in the past decades. Even when they have been developed within strategic visions, these agendas have often been the result of a selection of ICT solutions offered and made available by the ICT market and/or identified by emulating and copying other cities. Within these dynamics, some issues emerge as relevant: is ICT infrastructure the (only) key towards smart innovation? Are heavy ICT infrastructures and solutions able to meet people’s needs in urban environments? Are heavy ICT based innovation strategies able to achieve any form of urban intelligence?

Also following the most recent crises, climate change, Covid19 pandemic, large scale migrations,   different perspectives of urban smartness are being consolidated, more focused on citizens’ needs (experienced in the urban daily life) and roles (they play in city making) as well as targeting the need for long lasting changes and transition towards more sustainable, and mission-oriented urban systems.  This emerging perspective considers citizens and urban governments as engines of an urban intelligence which is enabled, facilitated, empowered by technologies. Investing on its human and institutional capital, such a city is able to experiment, is able to activate and take care of relevant learning processes situated in the urban environment and guaranteed by a continuous exchange of resources between the cyber and the urban space. How do cities learn? How can cities foster and guarantee learning process towards transition?

The “Smart Cities” module will cover the broader issues of “urban smartness” and drive the students through the questions and issues presented above. It will explore recent concepts of urban smartness, and open up critical discussions around them by organizing the contents around 4 thematic axes: 1) smartness and transition; 2) the transitional power of data; 3) service design; 4) the smart democracy of collaborative city making.

• SDG11 - SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES

Laurea (equivalent to Bachelor of Science) in the classes provided for the admission to the MSc.  

The Smart Cities and Urban Innovation course introduces students to the issues related to new digital technologies and management of innovation in the contemporary urban realm. These issues will be strengthened through an in-depth work (the creation of two essays) regarding specific urban innovation policies and given techniques involved in smart urban growth and community planning.  In this sense, students will be required to work both in teams and individually. They will be evaluated on the basis of the active participation to lectures and seminars held by the professors and invited speakers, works to be developed in class and at home, and relevant desk reserach/fieldwork for the development of the two eassys.

The course is composed of two modules: Urban Innovation and Planning (4 credits) and Smart Cities (4 credits). The overall evaluation will jointly consider:

1. Classworks and active class participation
2. Final essay (Urban Innovation and Planning module)
3. Final essay (Smart Cities module)
4. Final presentation and discussion during the exam session

In this sense the evaluation will include: knowledge and understanding, applying knowledge and understanding, making judgments, communication skills, learning skills.