This book discusses the concept and practice of a smart metropolitan region, and how smart cities promote healthy economic and spatial development. It highlights how smart metropolitan regional development can energize, reorganize and transform the legacy economy into a smart economy; how it can help embrace Information and Communications Technology (ICT); and how it can foster a shared economy. In addition, it outlines how the five pillars of the third industrial revolution can be achieved by smart communities. In addition, the book draws on 16 in-depth city case studies from ten countries to explore the state of the art regarding the smart economy in smart cities – and to apply the lessons learned to shape smart metropolitan economic and spatial development.

This book investigates the new urban geographies of “smart” metropolitan regionalism across the Greater Seattle area and examines the relationship between smart growth planning strategies and spaces of work, home, and mobility. The book specifically explores Seattle within the wider space-economy and multi-scaled policy regime of the Puget Sound region as a whole, ‘jumping up’ from questions of city politics to concerns with what the book interprets as the “intercurrence” of city-regional “ordering." These theoretical terms capture the state-progressive effort to promote smarter forms of regional development but also the societal/institutional tensions and outright contradictions that such urban development invariably entails, particularly around problems of social equity. Key organizing themes in the text include: the historical path-dependencies of uneven economic and social development, particularly between Tacoma-Pierce County and Seattle-King County; current patterns of high-wage, medium-wage, and low-wage jobs; the emerging spatial and social structure of recent residential changes, especially with respect to class and race composition; and, finally, transit trends and new urban spaces associated with policy efforts to mitigate highway congestion and car-dependency. Greater Seattle, then, is mapped as a key US urban region inscribed spatially by the uneven search for a more sustainable order. Historically-sensitive, theoretically-informed and empirically topical, this book is of interest to scholars and students at all levels in regional planning, urban geography, political science, sustainability studies, urban sociology and public policy.

The aim of this book is to investigate contemporary processes of metropolitan change and approaches to planning and governing metropolitan regions. To do so, it focuses on four central tenets of metropolitan change in terms of planning and governance: institutional approaches, policy mobilities, spatial imaginaries, and planning styles. The book’s main contribution lies in providing readers with a new conceptual and analytical framework for researching contemporary dynamics in metropolitan regions. It will chiefly benefit researchers and students in planning, urban studies, policy and governance studies, especially those interested in metropolitan regions. The relentless pace of urban change in globalization poses fundamental questions about how to best plan and govern 21st-century metropolitan regions. The problem for metropolitan regions—especially for those with policy and decision-making responsibilities—is a growing recognition that these spaces are typically reliant on inadequate urban-economic infrastructure and fragmented planning and governance arrangements. Moreover, as the demand for more ‘appropriate’—i.e., more flexible, networked and smart—forms of planning and governance increases, new expressions of territorial cooperation and conflict are emerging around issues and agendas of (de-)growth, infrastructure expansion, and the collective provision of services.

This book discusses population growth and the resultant problems, and highlights the need for immediate action to develop a set of planned satellite towns around Indian megacities to reduce their population densities and activity concentrations. It addresses problems like unplanned spatial expansion, over-concentration of populations, unmanageable situations in industrial growth, and poor traffic management, concluding that only megacities and their satellites, when planned properly, can together mitigate the urgent problem of urban concentration in and around the megacities. Identifying the general problems, the book develops a quantitative and spatially fitting regional allocation model of population and economic activities. It also offers a policy-based planned program of development for the selected megacities in India along with their satellites and fringe areas to ensure a healthy, balanced and prospective urban scenario for India in the coming decades.

This thought-provoking book questions the framework of the Horizon 2020 strategy and the policies of smart development. It aims to answer the following question: Is there any possibility for a policy of smart development and smart specialization in rural and peri-urban areas? Based on detailed analytical studies, empirical and econometric methods, as well as various European case studies, several conclusions are drawn. Smart development policies are well adapted to the developed or intermediate regions containing at the same time rural and urban areas, but do not really function for the more rural or more peripheral regions. The development policies of rural areas must be adapted to their particular characteristics, to the structure of their economies (agriculture, small firms), as well as in their diversity (distant regions, intermediate regions, rural areas near the urban areas). It appears interesting to exploit natural and cultural amenities, to develop the multifunctional character of the agriculture, to promote territorial innovation under all its forms, to favor the synergies between the various uses of land and space, and to develop the knowledge on the ecological, socioeconomic processes, as well as on the mechanisms of territorial governance. These results are very important because they question the validity of the H2020 policy and the smart development and smart specialization policies and their applicability to the whole European area, and not only for the most urban and rich areas. It will be valuable reading for students, researchers and policy-makers in regional development, rural studies, spatial planning and economic geography.

This book, based on international collaborative research, presents a state-of-the-art design for “Smart Master Planning” for all metropolises, megacities and metacities as well as at subcity zonal and community and neighborhood level. Smart Master Planning accepts that all cities are a smart city in making in a limited way as far as the six components for smart cities, namely smart people, smart economy, smart environment, smart mobility and smart governance are concerned. Smart Master Planning in any city can only be designed and executed by active roles of smart people and smart city government and is a joint and synchronous effort of e-democracy, e-governance and ICT-IOT system in a 24 hour 7-day framework on all activities. In addition to use of information and communication technologies and remote sensing, the design of Smart Master Planning utilizes domain-specific tools of many aspects of a city to realize the coordinated, effective and efficient planning, management, development and conservation that improve ecological, social, biophysical, psychological and economic wellbeing in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of development ecosystems and stakeholders. This book will present 12 case studies covering more than 12 cities or more cities centered on domain-specific smart planning components. Case studies of digital innovations in the Smart Master Planning include Application of Artificial Neural Network in Master Planning for cities, Smart Master Plan and 3 D GIS Planning Support System and Digital Spatial Master Planning Incorporating Machine to Machine Automation for Smart Economic Community (IoT, ICT and M2M based Digital Integration).

This book highlights the use of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures in order to develop smart cities and produce smart economies in Africa. It discusses a robust set of concepts, including smart planning, smart infrastructure development, smart economic development, smart environmental sustainability, smart social development, resilience, and smart peace and security in several African cities. By drawing on the accumulated knowledge on various conditions that make cities smart, green, livable and healthy, it helps in the planning, design and management of African urbanization. In turn, it fosters the development of e-commerce, e-education, e-governance, etc. The rapid development of ICT infrastructures facilitates the creation of smart economies in digitally served cities and towns through smart urban planning, smart infrastructures, smart land tenure and smart urban policies. In the long term, this can reduce emissions of CO2, promote the creation of low carbon cities, reduce land degradation and promote biodiversity.