Intelligent Environments and Planning for Urban Renewal

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental, social, and economic sustainability of cities are widely accepted objectives of urban development and planning. Urban renewal, in particular, gives priority to objectives of economic revitalization, improvement of the physical space of cities, and a lower environmental footprint. Now, the wide spread of broadband networks, the web, smart devices, sensors, and other ICTs is generating a wave of innovations which radically change the way urban planning, renewal, and sustainability can be achieved in cities.

The digital and intelligent environments we create affect the design of new cities and greenfield urban developments, but mostly the renewal of existing cities. Software applications and embedded systems offer new opportunities for economic development, behavioral change in the use of urban infrastructure, near-zero energy districts, better quality of life, security and health, more transparent and participatory government. The city becomes a measurable system allowing optimization, as its digital components create streams of big data generated by sensors, social media, webpages, smartphones, GPS, intelligent mobility and tracking systems. On the other hand, urban planning and urban renewal lose their centralized character and open to bottom-up initiatives and people-driven solutions. This trend in particular, the user-driven innovation, has a pivotal impact as intelligent environments enable innovation-for-all and citizens can freely shape the digital life of cities.

Within the new landscape of intelligent environments for cities, this Special Issue of Sustainability focuses on planning for urban renewal, and how the digital and intelligent environments change strategic planning, urban renewal, and urban sustainability methods, solutions, and strategies. We welcome papers dealing with case studies, literature review, and empirical survey findings. Topics to be addressed may include, but are not limited to, the following :

• Planning of digitally-led urban renewal
• Urban renewal by large-scale user-involvement
• User-driven co-design for urban renewal
• Participatory design of smart city districts and hubs
• Experimental development of smart near-zero energy districts
• Experimental development of smart eco-districts
• Urban sustainability within sensor-based environments
• Adaptation of urban renewal rating systems to digital conditions of sustainability.

Prof. Dr. Nicos Komninos
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Some Related Literature:

Anttiroiko, A.V. (2012). “Urban planning 2.0”. International Journal of E-Planning Research, 1(1). http://www.academia.edu/2161282/Urban_Planning_2.0
Green, J. (2011). Digital Urban Renewal. OVUM Consulting. http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/scc/Digital_Urban_Renewal.pdf
Kingston, R., Babicki, D., and Ravetz, J. (2005). “Urban regeneration in the intelligent city”. 9th International Conference on Computers in Urban Planning and Urban Management. http://www.ppgis.manchester.ac.uk/downloads/kingston_paper_CUPUM_2005.pdf
Komninos, N. (2014). The Age of Intelligent Cities: Smart Environments and Innovation-for-all Strategies. London and New York. Routledge. http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138782198/
Marsh, J. et al. (2015). Citizen-Driven Innovation: A guidebook for city mayors and public administrators. World Bank and ENOLL. http://www.urenio.org/2015/06/20/citizen-driven-innovation-and-smart-cities/
Sidawi, B., Deakin, M. and Al Waer, H. (2013). "Development in the Gulf: sustainable, intelligent and smart". Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, 2(3). http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/SASBE-10-2013-0053