Sustainable-Smart-Resilient-Low Carbon-Eco-Knowledge Cities

Making sense of a multitude of concepts promoting sustainable urbanization

Martin de Jong

Simon Joss

Daan Schraven

Changjie Zhan

Margot Weijnen

August 18, 2014 940 - 2

“I think Xiamen is one of the most attractive cities for foreigners who work in China. The city is very nice and wonderful, and this place is a very safe place for foreigners and their families.” ---South Korean engineer Won

Ho Moon

“Qingdao City possesses a very good, quick-developing infrastructure, which combine with a beautiful architecture landscape ensemble and nature color. I can see Qingdao City as a fine place for realization of creative projects, business, rest.” ---Russian expert Vladimir Kabanov

August 18, 2014 940 - 3

A great many new terms for attractive cities

Grenoble Eco Quartier

Tianjin Eco City

Melbourne Knowledge City

Guangzhou Knowledge City

Smart growth and ecological modernization

Cities attempt to make themselves attractive

Cities aim to achieve the triple bottom line

A plethora of new terms

All the same or all different?

August 18, 2014 940 - 4

Method

Bibliometric research

Steps taken:

1. Identify the (twelve) main city categories

2. Check their frequency of appearance 1996-2013

3. Check their evolution in frequency 1996-2013

4. Check their co-occurrence in titles, abstracts and key words

5. Check network structure of author keywords associated with the twelve categories (minimum 2 co-occurrences)

6. Check high frequency with high distinctness

August 18, 2014 940 - 5

What is a:

Sustainable city Eco city

Low carbon city Green city

Liveable city Resilient city

Knowledge city Ubiquitous city

Smart city Intelligent city

Information city Digital city?

Categories of urban

regenerative sustainability Number of articles retrieved

Sustainable city 546

Smart city 222

Digital city 166

Eco city 133

Green city 105

Low carbon city 93

Knowledge city 82

Resilient city 47

Intelligent city 33

Ubiquitous city 29

Liveable city 26

Information city 23

940 - 6

Evolution in frequency of 12 urban categories

August 18, 2014 940 - 7

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Eco city

Smart city

Knowledge city

Sustainable city

Resilient city

Low Carbon city

Green city

Ubiquitous city

Intelligent city

Digital city

Information city

Liveable city

Co-occurrence of 12 categories

August 18, 2014 940 - 8

Conceptual networks around 12 categories

categoriescategoriesriesegortiesurban categories categories

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High frequency and high distinctness

Category of urban regenerative sustainability Frequency > 100 Frequency < 100

High distinctness (high visibility in Figure 4) Sustainable city (quite

central)

Smart city

Digital city (quite

peripheral)

Eco city

Low carbon city

Resilient city

Knowledge city

Low distinctness (low visibility in Figure 4) Green city Intelligent city

Information city

Ubiquitous city

Liveable city

August 18, 2014 940 - 10

Main findings

The 12 categories are not really conceptually interchangeable

Sustainable city is dominant and appears as an umbrella concept, most closely linked to eco city and green city

More recently, the more narrowly defined smart city and low carbon city are coming up

Smart city seems to be developing its own family with some satellites around it

Knowledge city and resilient city are distinct concepts

August 18, 2014 940 - 11

Implications

How can shifts in urban development and policy-making explain the shift in frequency over the years?

Does it reflect the massive capital needs only met by private players with an interest in technological fixes?

What are the environmental implications of embracing urban systems and smart growth perspectives?

More detailed fieldwork in a number of carefully selected cities, examining which players are the largest financial and intellectual contributors is required

August 18, 2014 940 - 12