This open access book offers a selection of research papers and case studies presented at the
3rd international conference Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions held in
December 2019 in Bolzano Italy and explores the concept of smart and sustainable planning
including top contributions from academics policy makers consultants and other
professionals.Innovation processes such as co-design and co-creation help establish
collaborations that engage with stakeholders in a trustworthy and transparent environment while
answering the need for new value propositions.The importance of an integrated holistic
approach is widely recognized to break down silos in local government in particular when
aimed at achieving a better integration of climate-energy planning. Despite the ongoing
urbanization and polarization processes new synergies between urban and rural areas emerge
linking development opportunities to intrinsic cultural natural and man-made landscape values.
The increasing availability of big real-time urban data and advanced ICT facilitates frequent
assessment and continuous monitoring of performances while allowing fine-tuning as needed.
This is valid not only for individual projects but also on a wider scale. In addition and
circling back to the first point (big) urban data and ICT can be of enormous help in
facilitating engagement and co-creation by raising awareness and by providing insight into the
local consequences of specific plans. However this potential is not yet fully exploited in
standard processes and procedures which can therefore lack the agility and flexibility to keep
up with the pulse of the city and dynamics of society.The book provides a multi-disciplinary
outlook based on experience to orient the reader in the giant galaxy of smart and sustainable
planning support the transposition of research into practice scale up visionary approaches
and design groundbreaking planning policies and tools.
