This essay presents a reflective synthesis of the findings of the four research projects funded through the Nordic initiative on Sustainable Urban Development and Smart Cities between 2000 and 2024. Sustainable urban development is understood by this initiative to broadly address and solve the social, economic, and environmental challenges of cities by promoting quality of life, with the ultimate goal of making cities inclusive, safe, and resilient (UN Sustainable Development Goal 11).
The Nordic initiative is a collaborative effort between the Academy of Finland, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development, the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, the Swedish Energy Agency, the Research Council of Norway, and NordForsk.
The aim is to promote co-operation between knowledge communities in the Nordic countries in order to enhance opportunities and address challenges relating to sustainable urban development and smart cities. Within this general aim, the five key objectives of the initiative are:
- inclusive co-production
- interdisciplinary approaches
- Nordic added value
- prospects and limitation of digital technologies
- capacity building for early career researchers
This synthesis essay discusses the advancements in urban planning processes through different projects and how they contribute to sustainable urban development. Instead of simply summarising each project mechanically, the emphasis is on the insights offered by their findings. These insights have broader relevance to the idea of co-production in sustainable urban development, rather than being specific to individual cases.
Three concepts to consider
The projects in the Nordic initiative emphasised co-production and integrating this principle into their methods and practices, albeit with varying definitions and extents. Despite the differing definitions, the fundamental concept remained consistent: to promote increased interaction among decision-makers, experts, and the public, leading to a more inclusive and democratic decision-making process and knowledge generation. In the context of smart city solutions for sustainable urban development, this essay refers to these enhanced forms of interaction as “technologies of humility”.
The concept of “technologies of humility” implies a implies a re-evaluation of how governance is approached in societal matters that involve decision-making and expert knowledge, such as urban planning. “Technologies of humility” is a call for better engagement between decision-makers, experts, and the public, in order to make the decision-making process and knowledge generation more democratic. This requires not only formal processes and mechanisms of participation, but also an ethos of public engagement that allows citizens, in a broad sense, to contribute their knowledge and skills in addressing common problems as active and imaginative agents. This concept aligns with the idea of co-production that is central to the Nordic initiative and the projects that have been analysed.
Another notion related to the focus of the initiative is equality. Rising inequalities present pressing challenges for our cities and communities and create serious obstacles to the creation of socially sustainable urban futures. We define socially sustainable cities as cities that ensure equal access to the benefits of urban life for all, and we can see this theme running through all the projects with different empirical cases.
Defining a smart city
The concept of smart city has multiple definitions and is operationalised differently in different contexts. In their review of the concept, for example, Collins et al (2021, CAPS project) identify three areas that characterise a smart city: social smartness, technological smartness, and environmental smartness. According to them, social smartness has a focus on the quality of life, civic engagement, and well-being. Technological smartness is
centred on flexible technology that is well utilised and strategically applied. Environmental smartness is focused on optimisation, waste management, and sustainable thinking.3 Another interpretation of the concept emphasises making urban networks and services more efficient through digital and telecommunication technologies for the benefit of inhabitants and local development. This implies a more interactive and responsive city administration to enable novel solutions for meeting the demands of sustainable futures. This interpretation emphasises the uniqueness of each context that shapes both the challenges and opportunities for cities and municipalities in their quest to find smart alternatives.
These interpretations resonate with the aims of the Nordic initiative, which sees smartness as being more than technological solutions in the infrastructure of a city. Smart solutions are at all levels of knowledge and technology; they are found in the physical structures, urban services, and innovative administrative solutions. The four selected projects thus introduce smart and sustainable innovations that are accessible to different types of cities and diverse social groups.
Overview of funded projects
The Nordic initiative on Sustainable Urban Development and Smart Cities defines the focus of the projects through its two main overarching perspectives:
- co-production as a means of expanding research activities to bridge gaps between knowledge, understanding, and action; and
- integration of different dimensions of urban sustainability in the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
| Funded projects | Primary objectives | City partners |
| Citizens as Pilots of Smart Cities (CaPs) | Supporting smart and sustainable urban development that is based on the ideas and inputs of citizens. Fostering citizens’ knowledge and engagement in local decision-making processes. | Finland: Tampere, Tuusula, Lappeenranta Norway: Oslo, Lier Denmark: Copenhagen |
| Smart Planning for Healthy and Green Nordic Cities (NordGreen) | Supporting municipalities in designing urban green space for health and well-being. Moving beyond ‘smartness’ as just merely technical innovation to examining the potential for enhancing evidence-informed governance. Identifying the key features of green space for health and well-being. | Denmark: Aarhus Finland: Espoo, Ii Norway: Stavanger Sweden: Täby, Vilhelmina |
| SMARTer Greener Cities: Making Smart Cities Smarter and More Liveable Through Nature-based Solutions. | Developing and testing innovative tools and methods to integrate social, ecological, and technological systems (SETS) for better urban living. Emphasising technological and digital infrastructure to connect different sectors and tackle SETS complexity with green spaces and nature-based solutions at the forefront. | Denmark: Copenhagen Finland: Helsinki Sweden: Stockholm |
| Nordic participatory, healthy and people-centred cities (NordicPath) | Establishing a new model for citizens’ participation and collaborative planning with a focus on urban air quality and the interlinked challenge of climate change. Engaging citizens in the process of socio-technological change. Investigating how technologies can facilitate the processes of collaboratively co-designing solutions towards shaping more liveable, healthy, and sustainable cities. | Denmark: Aalborg Sweden: Gothenburg Norway: Kristiansand Finland: Lappeenranta |
In addition to the city partners, the map shows the locations of the universities and research institutes involved in the funded projects.
