COURSE DETAIL
This course trains students to use their experience abroad to reflect critically on the kind of city they would like to live in in the near future and what actions they would take to shape their ideal urban environment. To this purpose, the focus of the course is the nexus between cities, innovation, and sustainability, and the idea of smart city conceptualized and developed in the European Union as the main model for the city of the future. The concept of the smart city is approached by the six different angles and corresponding indicators commonly used to identify it: smart governance, smart economy, smart environment, smart mobility, smart living, and smart people. These six thematic areas are central to the course program, which comprehends three parts. The first part of the course sets the context by introducing concepts, tools, and policies of sustainable development and innovation in Europe and their strategic role in the development of cities and urban areas according to the indications from the United Nations 2030 Agenda. It also touches upon the historical evolution of cities as main hubs for socio-economic development. Secondly, the course concentrates on the study of the six different areas and indicators for the smart city in a European-United States comparative lens to give students different perspectives and tools to analyze an urban system and propose ideas for future developments. In the final part of the course, Florence and other case studies from Tuscany, Italy, and Europe serve as models of practical application of the previous theoretical considerations. European cities offer stimulating points of view concerning sustainability and innovative solutions. Florence in particular constitutes the main case study of the course, as the first smart city in Italy according to the ICity Rank 2022 and one of the nine Italian cities part of a European project for the development of Smart Cities. The course critically analyzes the approach towards the actual state of cities in Tuscany and their evolution towards the proposed model of a future city that the Tuscan region and its urban centers, Florence in particular, are undertaking. Key thematic issues and sustainability challenges are explored in the context of Tuscan urban environments, including mobility (electric mobility, shared mobility, AI systems), industrial development and clusters (green logistics, green buildings), innovative ecosystems (local ecosystems of innovation, startups incubators, and accelerators), and resource management (waste management, urban mining). The course includes outdoor activities (visit to local firms developing smart solutions; talking to local policy makers, public officials, or representatives of workers’ and firms’ organizations) and guest speakers that offer unique opportunities to engage with the local environment.