From smart cities to wise cities: ecological wisdom as a basis for sustainable urban development

Researchers and policy makers have proposed “smart cities” as one approach to an evolutionary transformation in urban infrastructure and management, focusing on optimizing planning and coordination through information technology systems and real-time data. How does the smart city approach compare with a potentially competing approach-ecological wisdom (EW), which is defined as a property of good design requiring minimal ecological and social intervention? Do the two approaches offer potential for productive synthesis for planning practice? We analyze academic, corporate, public intellectual, and public policy sources to present a comparative review of smart cities with “wise cities,” based on an EW framework. Through our analysis, we derive basic definitions of these two planning approaches, outline the general goals and objectives of each, and develop an overall multi-tiered framework of analysis for both approaches. We conclude by proposing potential areas of synthesis, applications for planning practice, and areas of future research.