"Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions"

A. Bisello, D. Vettorato, P. Laconte, S. Costa (Eds.)

This book comprises a selection of the top contributions presented at the second international conference “Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions 2017”, held in March 2017 in Bolzano, Italy. Featuring 46 papers by policy-makers, academics and consultants, it discusses current groundbreaking research in smart and sustainable planning, including quality of life. Key topics in this volume are among others ICTs, public spaces and society; strategies and actions for good governance; urban-rural innovation; rethinking mobility.

• View the leaflet of the book - PDF

Keynote address

The introductory keynote address was given by Pierre Laconte: “Smart and sustainable cities: what is smart? what is sustainable?”.

Forthcoming publication

“Energy, mobility and quality of life: from global to local” (2019)

This book, planned for 2019, will further explore the future of energy production and consumption at both the GLOBAL and the LOCAL level. The link between CO2/GHG emissions and climate change is agreed by a majority of climatologists. One could describe this is as the domain of "climatology".
But all observers agree that fossil fuel consumption - the main source of emissions - is increasing instead of decreasing because production of such fuels is politically supported and heavily subsidised at country level.

Linking CO2/GHG emissions, which are "planetary", to energy policies, which are "localised", is admittedly difficult, because there is no agreed way to quantify the emissions at the "localised" level. This raises a governance issue. The quality of the environment and the policies to achieve it are determined at the "localised" level. They are linked to energy provision. One could describe these as elements of "human ecology".

The project for 2019 aims to cast some light on ways to reduce fossil energy consumption, in order to reduce both "global" GHG emissions which affect the climate and "localised" pollution which affects the quality of life.

Reducing the total energy consumption necessarily requires an appropriate rules of public governance at all levels and of private corporate responsibility in saving resources.

For a case study the book focuses on the central Belgian conurbation, which is characterised by a dispersed system of governance.