(by Enrica Cataldo, AIDR member) The fundamental question that our country, hit by the Coronavirus pandemic, the effect of a fatal zoonosis, must ask itself is how to connote the new normal, in other words which path to choose to get out of the crisis, fruit of this annus horribilis. Go back to the previous situation, made some approximate remedies, to business as usual and cross your fingers, or aim for the so-called transformative resilience, with the intent of enhancing the resilience of the system against future crashes? After all, why waste the opportunity of such a profound crisis to give the country a radical change of course?
If we push the imagination towards a dystopian scenario, but not far away, it is easy to understand the development of intelligent urban realities in constant evolution, based on digital infrastructures, which shape cities making them sustainable, in step with technological innovations, more attentive to quality. of citizens' life, and remotely accessible. A smart city is a place where traditional networks and services are made smarter thanks to the use of digital technologies and telecommunications with immediate advantage for citizens and businesses. It involves smarter urban transport networks, effective water supply, state-of-the-art waste disposal facilities and more efficient ways to light and heat buildings. It also means a more interactive and participatory city administration. A smart city makes Wi-Fi available in public places, develops sustainable and intelligent infrastructures, minimizes the impact on the environment through sustainable mobility and uses, in general, a high level of technology.
The effects of the pandemic and the obligation to equip themselves with digital tools to deal with the lockdown have made us reflect on the need to accelerate the digital transformation of cities, so as to allow remote accessibility to public services. In such a scenario, induced by the health emergency, the transition to smart cities has undergone a surge, as the use of digital has become inevitable, the attention to the profile of sustainability has taken hold, the way to face everyday life it has been completely subverted. The concept of intelligence of cities, while showing multifaceted aspects, has common identifying characteristics that move along some main axes: smart economy; smart people; smart governance; smart mobility; smart enrvironment; smart living. Above all, the concept of “smart people” is highlighted, which presupposes participation, involvement, dialogue, and interaction between citizens and the reference public administrations. In this sense, a city is all the more intelligent the more it is the result of a participatory process in which individuals find the awareness of being able to plan public policies together.
Smart cities are therefore the evolution from a combination of buildings and infrastructures to living organisms whose main distinguishing features are the people who live in them and the way in which they interact; in other words, they are cities which, thanks to the use of information and communication technologies, evolve from city space to city place, from urbs to civitas. The digital transformation path of cities, however, far from being a universally valid recipe that can be descended from above, represents a gradual process that must take into account the peculiarities of the individual realities that undertake it, to significantly improve their services, avoid waste, save resources and respond to the real needs of the administered community. As digitization increasingly assumes the role of a strategic asset for the country and an incredible opportunity to manage change, the Government has provided a series of tools in favor of public administrations that make adequate economic resources available to promote digital innovation processes.
With the conversion law n. 120/2020 of the "Simplification and digital innovation" decree, the set of rules to redesign digital governance, accelerate the digitization of public services and simplify relations between citizens and public administration, has become operational, with further objective of spreading the culture of innovation, of overcoming the digital divide and of promoting accessibility for people with disabilities.
With the formation of the Draghi government in February 2021, the path of digitalization was strongly confirmed, just think of the appointment of the Minister for technological innovation and digital transition, followed by the establishment of an inter-ministerial committee for digital transition , chaired by the Premier himself.
Among the first acts of the new Government, we note the adoption of the decree-law of 1 March 2021, n. 22 which intervened on the functions of the Government in the field of technological innovation and digital transition, providing that the President of the Council promotes, directs and coordinates the Government's action in the Italian strategy for ultra-broadband, in the digitization of public administrations. and businesses and in the enhancement of digital infrastructures. The digitization of public administrations has also assumed a central role in the new National Recovery and Resilience Plan, considering that one of the three strategic axes of the PNRR concerns the digitization and innovation of the public sector, levers of the country's economic revival, with the specific intent of providing citizens with services and accessibility to a wide range of 'smart' tools.
So the idea of smart city is generating interesting aspects of the debate among scholars in terms of threats and opportunities induced by digital change. ICT tools, in fact, allow to experiment with new methods of comparison and co-decision among the actors of the process, giving rise to new forms of "online citizenship", but at the same time they can generate a serious risk of social disparity, of digital devide between those who have digital skills and those who do not. This phenomenon, already visible during the lockdown, which has elevated smart working to an ordinary way of providing work and has forced to minimize human contact and move communication online, also risks transforming large urban centers into cities. ghost. By analyzing the possible digital development scenarios of the coming years, collaborative robotics, artificial intelligence, IoT, bionics, virtual and augmented reality, big data, online platforms, a series of potential impacts, challenges and opportunities are highlighted. common questions come to light.
The possible alienation is a further element to consider in the analysis of the consequences of digitization, in order to avoid that the Public Administrations. from glass houses to empty houses and that smart cities degenerate towards the model of Asian and Middle Eastern new towns that are completely automated and robotic, hyper-connected and hyper-technological which show the most disturbing aspect of the debate, because they radically move away from the idea of Cicero's “civitas”, understood as a community aimed at responding to the needs of its inhabitants. Of course, there are not a few knots that still need to be solved, as technological innovation is now an obligatory path, but at the same time it is necessary to evaluate well, at the same time, the areas in which it is applied to fully understand the undeniable advantages and all the possible consequences.