An introduction for smart planning, on the local, urban and regional scales (Definitions, applications and factors)

Today’s cities have made decision-makers think of getting rid of the shortcomings and problems for achieving prosperity. Meanwhile, In order to reform and create new structures of cities, the concept of smart city has emerged. In this regard, ICT (Information and communication technology) and IOT (Internet of things) as the main focus in the modern world, are the crucial components and the identity of the smart city. The fast improvement of technology has transformed the spatial development knowledge of the smart area. Given that, the smart city as a new strategy has got the attention of developers and city managers. The concept of “Smart” is not limited to the city only, while the other scales should be planned smartly. Furthermore, the concept of the smart city has been discussed widely, the other scales have been neglected so far. Therefore, in this research, the hierarchy of making a smart area is explained elaborately in order to disambiguate the factors of the smart area in 3 different scales: smart neighborhood, smart city, smart region. And also this research effort to find a connection amongst smart neighborhood, smart city and smart region. To this end, the concept of smartening in 3 scales has been defined and 6 dimensions of the smart area have been determined namely: Smart society, smart economy, smart mobility, smart governance, smart environment, and smart life (quality of life). In addition, according to prior studies and successful experience throughout the world, the factors of the smart area in 3 scales have been extracted. To conclude, the conceptual pattern of smart planning as the hierarchical pattern is proposed by authors in order to be a guide for future researches. The methodology of this study is descriptive and fundamental, and subsequently, characteristics and requirements have been explained with resources and library studies.

Keywords:

Smart planning , smart region , smart city , smart neighborhood , ICT infrastructure , IoT infrastructure