The Future of Cities and Lands Seen from the Perspective of Digital Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Whether starting from the environment, society, or the economy, it is now clear that all these areas are closely linked, interconnected, and interdependent. The construction of a sustainable future depends on our ability to balance resources (social, economic, environmental) in the best possible way in order to build a development model that puts human beings at the center, while respecting the environment in which they live and which they will leave to their descendants. In this context, technology, and in particular digital technology, plays a fundamental role, made even more delicate by the fact that it is both the subject and the object of the development process. As object, technology is an instrument of change in the strictest sense of the term. Technology is used to bring about change in the economy, society, and the environment, defining its development paths in a system of interdependencies between it and the phenomena it determines and which, in turn, determine it. As subject, technology determines, on the basis of the potential it offers, the choices that define the substance, nature, and structure of the development paths affecting the environment, society and the economy. In the coming years we will be called upon to make choices with respect to technology that will determine both how it can be useful in defining a model of sustainable development, and whether it can be sustainable in itself. From this perspective, the Special Issue encourages the scientific society to explore and reflect on the outcomes and opportunities of this multifaceted scenario. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Digital sustainability and transformation during and post-pandemic;
• Social innovation and new enterprise models;
• Innovative research, education, and training modes;
• Knowledge management models in spatial planning processes, in architectural and civil design and in infrastructure engineering;
• Platform society;
• Social networks;
• Surveillance capitalism;
• New technologies for sustainable mobility;
• Operationalizing sustainable tourism;
• SDGs and digital sustainability;
• Open Science and Big Data;
• Indicators of digital sustainability.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Luigi Mundula
Prof. Dr. Maria Paradiso
Prof. Dr. Marzia Traverso
Guest Editors

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• digital sustainability
• new technologies
• digital transformation
• sustainable ICT
• smart and sustainable development
• innovation
• smart and sustainable mobility
• urban technology
• smart cities