Innovative and technological urban spaces, but above all, cities designed to be sustainable.

The smart city is a city that manages resources intelligently and aims to become economically sustainable and energy self-sufficient, with particular attention to the quality of life and the needs of its citizens. It is therefore an urban area that knows how to keep up with innovations and the digital revolution, but also sustainable and attractive.

It is called smart precisely because the fulcrum is the high connectivity that embraces all areas, where objects and services exchange information with each other thanks to the Internet of Things. The term smart refers above all to a sustainable, efficient and innovative city, capable of guaranteeing a high quality of life to its citizens.

Therefore, it is here where large green spaces also come into play, a fluid traffic that allows one to practice sustainable mobility made of bike sharing, car sharing and hybrid or electric cars. Connected and integrated technological solutions and systems are put in place, dotting cities with sensors that generate a large amount of data, which can feed more advanced services and in real time, and allow administrations an increasingly efficient management in all sectors (public transport, energy management and distribution, waste management; maintenance and optimisation of public buildings, etc.).

The data today, to make way for the future

According to Eurostat statistics, today 75% of the European population lives in cities. This figure is expected to grow globally as well. According to United Nations reports, by 2050 70% of the global population will live in cities.

It is therefore obvious and necessary to move towards a more technological and sustainable urban approach. In Italy, to date, Trento is the city with the most sustainable infrastructures, followed by Turin, in second place, and Bologna, in third. This is what emerges from the fifth edition of EY's Smart City Index released in 2020: a surprise compared to the previous edition, which saw Milan in first place, followed by Turin and Bologna.

More time for us and our planet

The innovations and new technologies introduced in recent years in the areas of development, research and eco-sustainability call for a continuous improvement of urban situations, and it follows that any city can become smarter.

Climate change, the rapid growth of the urban population, the scarcity of energy and water resources, economic and technological changes are just some of the factors that in the useful decades have led the world's urban centres to face innumerable challenges. The objective of Smart Cities is precisely to respond to these challenges and take advantage of the opportunities offered by these changes by trying to create new projects and services to improve the lives of citizens, respecting the environment and future generations.