EVALUATING THE EUROPEAN SMART CITIES VISIONS OF THE FUTURE

This paper illustrates a novel application of an Analytic Network Process (ANP) in the field of Smart cities with the aim of investigating the interrelations between the components and sectors of Smart cities. Although there is no agreement on the exact definition of a Smart city, a number of main dimensions can be identified through literature review and these include: smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart people, smart living, and smart governance. These six dimensions are used to evaluate four different policy visions of the city of the future as derived from the Joint Programme Initiatives “Urban Europe” (JPI-EU). The results of the evaluation show that the Entrepreneurial City is the policy vision with higher priorities in all the sectors considered in the model, i.e. Universities, Government, Industry and Civil Society. Some relevant urban planning and policy implications of this vision are provided in the conclusion.