Toward Intelligent Thessaloniki: from an Agglomeration of Apps to Smart Districts

The new planning paradigm of “intelligent cities” is replacing the principles of smart growth and new urbanism which have inspired urban planning over the past 20 years. The “Intelligent Thessaloniki” case study highlights how a city is adopting this new paradigm and how the deployment of broadband networks, smart urban spaces, web-based applications and e-services is helping every district of the city to address its particular objectives of competitiveness and sustainable development. The paper examines the current state of development of broadband infrastructure and e-services in the city of Thessaloniki, the strategy that has been adopted to stimulate the future development of the city with respect to smart environments and districts, and the gaps and bottlenecks influencing this transformation of the city. The conclusions stress that a new orientation of urban governance is needed to address the challenges of digital literacy, creativity in the making of smart environments and business models for the long-term sustainability of e-services enhancing urban intelligence. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013