Modelling Smart and Sustainable Cities as Complex Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Supporters of the smart cities paradigm stress its potential for stimulating ecological integrity and social equity towards the greater aim of urban sustainability. From a technical point of view, the Smart City model considers the city as a complex system made up of citizens, resources, and services. Smart cities should be self-adaptive systems.

One way for characterizing complex adaptive systems is by the presence of components that learn through interaction. This is a useful metaphor for the potential of smart city systems. In smart cities, one need is for planners to channel technological capabilities productively, while chaos provides a dynamic and flexible space for business and social innovation to breathe. The sterile and the organic (co)exist in paradoxical equilibrium.

A (smart) city may be planned as a complex dynamic system that changes in both time and space, tracing paths that are difficult to predict over a short period (i.e., chaotic). Together with auto-organization, these features of complexity and dynamic development have been key issues for city planning. This requires the development of new concepts and models of city planning that comprise the systemic perception.

The system approach enables us to address the city as a dynamic complex system, and complexity is the key issue to guarantee the evolution of the system. When the components of the urban subsystems and their relationships are in equilibrium and/or stable, the cities are in a sustainable dynamic state. The smart cities paradigm has all of the potential for stimulating prosperity, competitiveness, efficiency, and sustainability in several socio-economic levels.

The complexity within smart cities represents a challenge for sustainability and resiliency. In this Special Issue, we look for contributions that address any of the topics mentioned above (but not exclusively), whether they are of a more theoretical and critical character, or are of an applied and practical nature.

Dr. Jorge Rocha
Guest Editor

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