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What Are Cognitive Cities?
Abstract
“Smart city” as a concept is an appropriate and valuable answer to the efficiency challenges modern cities are facing today. Its epistemic foundations, however, rooted as they are in (command and) control theory and scientific management, lead to a very traditional and mostly technocratic view of urban management and government. Yet, the new urban challenges cannot be addressed solely by ways of increased efficiency. These challenges also—and probably mostly so—pertain to sustainability and resilience, requiring new and innovative approaches to urban governance. Such approaches will have to involve the “human factor”, cognition, creativity along with the ability to learn so as to be able to deal with disruptive changes (resilience). In addition, cities are complex sociotechnical systems and it is therefore not possible to address their challenges thanks to technological developments and innovations only. In this chapter we will introduce a novel approach to overcoming the limitations of the concept of “smart cities” and explain the conceptual framework that underlies our approach, as well as the different chapters of this book. As such, we offer a broad and comprehensive perspective on so-called “cognitive cities.”
... Smart cities demand the effectiveness and resilience of new action plans for urban governance [39,41]. Such approaches should include knowledge, cognition, and creativity; in other words, they rely on the "human factor" and capacity to learn in order to confront those significant changes and attain problem-solving abilities [8]. In [9], the authors focus on the interaction between administrations and citizens, and use an eGovernment framework aimed at the empowerment of citizens, which can be achieved via promotion of citizen participation. ...
... The term "cognitive city" was first coined by Novak in [19]. In [8], the authors describe a cognitive city as a city that integrates the efficiency of "smart cities" with sustainability and resilience, where this type of city demands the involvement of the human factor, cognition, and creativity, along with the ability to learn and face disruptive changes, supported by cognitive systems (CSs). CSs are defined as follows: "Cognition systems are systems with many richly interacting adaptive components that include human beings and other cognitive entities with sufficient awareness, configurability, learning, language, autonomy, and cooperation capabilities at multiple scales to adaptively yet predictably synthesize the intended sustainable, responsible individual and collective behaviors." ...
... Following the line of the cognitive city proposed in [8,28] as well as the survey outcomes developed for two cities (Quito and Portoviejo) in Ecuador, a set of actions were faced to prepare the proposal model as follows: ...
According to the United Nations (UN), a "continuous, participatory, and inclusive urban planning process should be the starting point and framework for improving population living conditions," and this research emerges from examining trends in smart cities. It explores the impact of collective intelligence, geographical information systems, and cognitive systems as a way of supporting the decision-making of local governments (municipalities) to face the challenges announced by the UN in the Urban Agenda 2017. This methodology employs an exploratory approach using the participatory action research method. The model was tested in three municipalities in Ecuador using a technological and collaborative platform called Cognitive Urban Planning (PUC). The results highlighted improvements in the decision-making process in urban planning, since the interactive participation processes through the PUC allowed for the suggestion of a group of strategies for an emerging neighborhood plan developed with the citizens working together in the municipality in real-time. In conclusion, the effects of the decision-making plan could be applied to improve and enhance community participation through city co-creation, supporting the decision-making process of municipalities in a way that promotes inclusive urban planning and stakeholders' awareness, as the recommended plans are supported by the desires and needs raised by citizens.
... In order to differentiate between the digital city model and the regular city model, research classifies the city in three main models: regular city, smart city and cognitive city [20,29,30]. In a regular city, city elements are disconnected digitally, and the city fabric is static and non-responsive to changes or interactions [20]. ...
... In a smart city model, the digital presentation of the city can learn, measure and document the conditions of the physical settings; however, interaction with the city user is limited to preliminary applications such as sensing and recording [29]. In a cognitive city, city elements are linked digitally in real-time and could learn, adapt and respond to interactions [30]. Research describes the cognitive city model as the collective intelligence of the city, where city fabric acts in a proactive manner to address ongoing changes and interactions between the city components together and between the city and its users, based on an interconnected grid of city elements represented in a collective digital system, as demonstrated in Figure 1 [29,30]. ...
... In a cognitive city, city elements are linked digitally in real-time and could learn, adapt and respond to interactions [30]. Research describes the cognitive city model as the collective intelligence of the city, where city fabric acts in a proactive manner to address ongoing changes and interactions between the city components together and between the city and its users, based on an interconnected grid of city elements represented in a collective digital system, as demonstrated in Figure 1 [29,30]. time and could learn, adapt and respond to interactions [30]. ...
Digitalisation and the future city paradigm are becoming a trend in recent research and practices. Literature discusses digitalisation and its applications as the main gear in the transformation to the ideal future city vision. Yet, the concept of digitalisation is articulated in many interpretations and presented in different applications in the built environment. One emerging application is digital twinning. Literature envisions the potential of digital twinning applications in the urban realm and discusses the cognitive city model and its implications on the future of our cities, its urban realm and the built environment in general. With the evolving themes on the ideal future city model, this systematic review tackles the following questions: what are the key motives and drivers of the future city paradigm; what is a city digital twin; and what are their expected applications. Additionally, how literature envisions the definition of the city users and their experience in the urban realm of the city of the future. This review article explores related literature on the themes of future city model, digital urban realm, digital twinning and city users. The main findings are: identifying key gears of the future city model in literature, exploring city digital twin conceptualization and applications and discussing concepts on the definition of city user and user experience in the city of the future.
... Due to growing urbanization, today's cities face major challenges, such as the increasing scarcity of resources and the preservation of human well-being. The vision of a cognitive city is an important approach to meeting these challenges in the interests of the city and its stakeholders (e.g., inhabitants, companies and nonprofit-organizations) (Finger & Portmann, 2016). The cognitive city is based on the concept of the smart city and aims to compensate for its deficits. ...
... Rather, the aim is to demonstrate the diversity of the spectrum of approaches, methods and tools that might be applied to achieve a cognitive city. In a cognitive city, humans and cognitive systems learn from and with each other, and they mutually influence and change each other (Finger & Portmann, 2016). Formulated as a principle, this can be described as "ontological design": "We shape our world as this world affects and shapes us" (Willis, 2006, p. 70). ...
... Ontological design research is a research methodology toolbox in which exactly this aspect is considered: To respond to urban challenges in the best possible way, regardless of whether new paths are needed or whether the familiar ones can be taken. In the end, the goal is to build an efficient, sustainable and resilient city: The cognitive city (Finger & Portmann, 2016). Thus, it makes sense to develop a research methodology toolbox that could be called "ontological design research". ...
Based on the advancements of a smart city, the cognitive city focuses on the communication between the city's stakeholders and cognitive systems to create a human-machine symbiosis in which human and machine can interact directly with each other. To develop the cognitive city means to design this sociotechnical relationship. This requires a variety of approaches, methods, and tools. To this purpose, the authors of this chapter suggest the concept of ontological design. This principle helps to develop a research methodology toolbox that can be applied to create research and development strategies suitable for shaping the relationship between human and environment. This chapter is an essay with the aim to encourage the reader to reflect. Ontological design means that it is necessary to become aware of the influences of today's actions on the future. With the help of an illustrative use case, this chapter wants to demonstrate why and to what extent the concept of ontological design can support urban development.
... Starting from here, in the next section, we introduce the urban intelligence-overriding concept of cognitive cities (Portmann and Finger 2016) as one of the most farreaching applications of an unleashed intelligence amplification loop. ...
... Many cities today address their challenges with smart city initiatives, i.e., they increase the degree of connectivity of information. According to Portmann and Finger (2016), smart city initiatives thereby mainly address efficiency issues, however, most often they leave sustainability and, ultimately, resilience unaddressed. In contrast, an increased degree of social connectivity leads to learning cities, where, beyond becoming more efficient, cities also become economically, socially, and ecologically more sustainable (Portmann and Finger 2016). ...
... According to Portmann and Finger (2016), smart city initiatives thereby mainly address efficiency issues, however, most often they leave sustainability and, ultimately, resilience unaddressed. In contrast, an increased degree of social connectivity leads to learning cities, where, beyond becoming more efficient, cities also become economically, socially, and ecologically more sustainable (Portmann and Finger 2016). Social connectivity thereby means more connections between individual humans, what favors addressing a group's collective intelligence. ...
The article proposes granular computing as a theoretical, formal and methodological basis for the newly emerging research field of human–data interaction (HDI). We argue that the ability to represent and reason with information granules is a prerequisite for data legibility. As such, it allows for extending the research agenda of HDI to encompass the topic of collective intelligence amplification, which is seen as an opportunity of today’s increasingly pervasive computing environments. As an example of collective intelligence amplification in HDI, we introduce a collaborative urban planning use case in a cognitive city environment and show how an iterative process of user input and human-oriented automated data processing can support collective decision making. As a basis for automated human-oriented data processing, we use the spatial granular calculus of granular geometry.
... Cognitive cities are an emerging concept that uses cognitive computing-based techniques to create smart and sustainable urban environments that can address real-world problems [1]. These cities leverage technologies such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and probability and statistics to make informed decisions based on human data [2]. ...
... Regarding to the small number of studies of cognitive cities in developing countries in South America, this study aims to understand this gap by proposing the first step of the data-information-knowledge-wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy [8], focusing on data sources identification, as a means of initiating the process of transforming cities into cognitive cities. The study focuses on Ecuador, a developing country in South America [7], and identifies three main areas that can provide human data for learning computer systems: (1) open data, (2) social media, and (3) Internet of Things (IoT) networks [6]. We think, as from this study, readers may find in a consolidated work, the sources available nowadays to retrieve raw data for the implementation of strategies based on smart governance. ...
... Moreover, cities are complex sociotechnical systems [88], so their challenges cannot be addressed through technological developments and innovations alone. In fact, Finger and Portmann as early as 2016 introduced the concept of cognitive cities [89]. ...
... Moreover, cities are complex sociotechnical systems [88], so their challenges cannot be addressed through technological developments and innovations alone. In fact, Finger and Portmann as early as 2016 introduced the concept of cognitive cities [89]. Service intelligence that is focused on individuals and citizens also contributes to the notion of the cognitive city [60]. ...
Citizens are an essential part of the process of smartification and sustainable development of cities as they must adopt, understand and interact with the enabling technologies of digital transformation of societies, cities, and public administration. Therefore, technology acceptance is crucial to creating smart and citizen-centered cities. This is even more challenging in small towns that suffer from an aging population, desertification, lack of infrastructure, and especially the digital divide. The purpose of this research is to investigate the adoption of an Urban Services Technology (UST) in tourism management within a tourism-oriented small town in Southern Italy. A questionnaire was then constructed according to the 12-variable Urban Service Technology Acceptance Model (USTAM), and 216 responses were obtained from a defined group of 1076 subjects. Analyzing the data with a quantitative approach by conducting Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the assumptions of the initial model were all rejected and new five factors emerged. The path diagram shows that only the factors Sustainability, Ease and Value have a positive correlation with technology adoption. Future research might investigate the mediating role of socio-demographic variables on technology acceptance by considering geographical and cultural diversity among small towns.
... Smart cities demand the effectiveness and resilience of new action plans for urban governance. Such approaches should include knowledge, cognition, and creativity; in other words, they rely on the "human factor," along with the capacity to learn to confront those significant changes and to attain problemsolving abilities [7]. ...
... However, it is indispensable to retain the possibility of choosing the best option and to the opportunity to give and receive advice on decision-making. Hence, the potential of smart cities is incomplete, which clears the way for the new paradigm of cognitive cities [7]. In a cognitive city, the citizen becomes an active element of urban governance, not only through civic participation but also by serving as a sensor for the operational state of the urban infrastructure. ...
... Such approaches should include knowledge, cognition, and creativity; in other words, they must rely on the human factor, along with the capacity to learn to confront those significant changes and to attain problem-solving abilities. 6 Today, available technologies make it possible to conceive of a place or a city that is personalized and citizen driven. Foth et al. emphasize the extent to which the sociable smart city blends the best of two atmospheres: a people-centered social city and a smart city that embraces the opportunity of future Internet-and technology-driven innovations, such as living labs, the Internet of Things (IoT), and big data. ...
... Figure 1 links several concepts to the emerging approach of urban planning. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] The core of the model presented in Figure 1 has a strong relationship with urban planning. Urban planning is a technical and political process, concerned with the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure that passes into and out of urban areas, such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks. ...
Smart cities are emerging around the world. In response, government institutions have made efforts to implement technologies that promote citizen welfare. We explore the advances in inclusive and participatory urban planning processes and propose a conceptual model that helps citizens and governments in the decision-making process.
... According to Finger and Portmann definition [19], a cognitive city integrates the efficiency of "Smart cities" with sustainability and resilience; in this type of cities, it is required to involve the human factor, cognition, and creativity, along with the ability to learn and to face disruptive changes, therefore Cognitive Cities are more efficient, sustainable and resilient. See Fig. 1. ...
... See Fig. 1. In this area where cognition and efficiency are combined, the use of Cognitive Systems (CS) takes strength [19]. ...
... In this sense, smart cities, under promises of efficiency and sustainability, have so far not responded to the demands of the future city, or the so-called cognitive city. Indeed, cognitive cities are understood as complex socio-technical systems, where the most latent challenges are related to make cities more inclusive and resilient [2], [3]. Therefore, the cities of learning in turn are framed in the smart city, and complement it. ...
... Such approaches should include knowledge, cognition, and creativity. In other words, they rely on the human factor, along with the capacity to learn to confront those big changes and to attain problem-solving abilities [2]. ...
Given the need to strengthen citizen participation in urban planning processes, related research is aimed at considering citizens as “sensors” in order to use their collective intelligence. In other words, people who interact as active members through the use of collaborative and social platforms generate valuable data that is used as input for intelligent systems. The stagnation of the construction sector in large cities and the resulting housing situation have led researchers to seek new technological answers where participation from people, together with policies established by the government, jointly create new environments and solutions of housing. This study aims to present the design of a social Web application that promotes collaborative-based urban planning within the context of cognitive cities. Specifically, after studying the theoretical bases and analyzing data collected in two Ecuadorian cities, we propose a non-functional prototype. The proposed methods approach to what will be a Web application that embeds a model of cognitive urban planning, and were evaluated by local government collaborators. The prototype was built depending on the requirements specification and the intelligent components that will allow citizens to collaborate and interact in a smarter way. We conclude that involving people in the co-creation of their cities (by collaborative computer-mediated means) may improve their living conditions and place urban resilience as a challenge that can be overcome.
... The concept of "Cognitive City" was first introduced by Novak [25] and later refined by other authors. There are affine definitions concerning the rethinking of a city as an intelligent, information-centric environment, such as "Smart City", "Intelligent City", etc. Namely, a Cognitive City emphasizes the role of learning, memory creation and experience retrieval as central processes for coping with current challenges of efficiency, sustainability and resilience [16,24]. ...
... Peculiar to Cognitive Cities, however, is the twofold role of citizens who are "sensors" as well as "recipients". In other terms, people feed a cognitive system with information and knowledge; at the same time, people learn knowledge from a Cognitive City too [16]. ...
In recent years, there has been a huge effort connecting all kind of devices to Internet. From small devices (e.g., e-health monitoring sensors or mobile phones) that we carry daily in what is called the body-area-network, to big devices (such as cars), passing by all devices (e.g., TVs or refrigerators) at home. In modern cities, everything (at work, at home, and even in the streets) is connected to Internet. Accordingly, the amount of data in Internet grows dramatically every day. With this regard, humans face two main challenges: (1) to extract valuable knowledge from the given Big Data and (2) to become part of the equation, i.e., to become active actors in the Internet of Things. To do so, researchers and developers have created a novel generation of intelligent systems which are producing more and more intelligent devices, yielding what is called smart cities. Fuzzy systems are used in many applications in the context of Smart Cities. Now, it is time to address the effective interaction between intelligent systems and citizens with the aim of passing from smart to Cognitive Cities. Moreover, the use of interpretable fuzzy systems can facilitate such interaction and pave the way towards Cognitive Cities.
... They enable the exchange of citizens' perceptions and knowledge among them and foster urban development, particularly regarding efficiency and sustainability. Moreover, they allow to build a collective knowledge base, supporting urban decisions on a data-driven basis (Finger and Portmann, 2016;Malone and Bernstein, 2015). Based on aggregated data sets obtained through citizens' use of urban services (e.g., everyday questions through civic interaction), cities obtain an integrated view on issues (e.g., urban living space) and can involve affected stakeholders (e.g., citizens) specifically (Hurwitz et al., 2015). ...
... Thus, an appropriate environment for a human-computer symbiosis can be established and collective and humanistic intelligence sustainably be created (Malone and Bernstein, 2015;Mann, 1998). This intelligence is needed eventually to strengthen urban resilience and sustain urban governance to tackle challenges of urbanization and digitalization (Finger and Portmann, 2016). ...
This article presents a conceptual framework for urban dialogue systems to let them emulate human analogical reasoning by using cognitive computing and particularly soft computing. Since creating analogies is crucial for humans to learn unknown concepts, this article proposes an approach of urban applications to human cognition by introducing analogical reasoning as a sound component of their fuzzy reasoning process. Pursuing an approach derived from (transdisciplinary) design science research, two experiments were conducted to reinforce the theoretical foundation.
... These devices are used to optimize traffic management, improve waste collection, monitor environmental conditions, enhance public safety, and enable smart grids for energy efficiency. In this environment, the need for robust cybersecurity is paramount, Finger et al. 1 Cognitive cities have introduced unprecedented cybersecurity challenges. Traditional, centralized cybersecurity systems often struggle to meet the demands of these distributed and dynamic environments, where threats evolve rapidly and attack surfaces expand continuously. ...
... Cognitive cities, often referred to as smart cities, represent a revolutionary approach to urban development by integrating advanced technologies such as AI, IoT, and big data analytics to foster intelligent and responsive urban environments. These cities are meticulously designed to enhance residents' quality of life, optimize resource use, and improve overall urban management [8,9]. However, the intricate and interconnected nature of cognitive city systems introduces considerable cybersecurity challenges that must be effectively addressed to guarantee their secure and reliable operation. ...
Cognitive cities are the next step in urban development, integrating AI, IoT, and big data to create smart, responsive environments that enhance quality of life and optimize resource usage. However, their interconnected systems pose significant cybersecurity challenges, such as maintaining data integrity, secure communication, and system resilience. This research introduces a security framework that combines blockchain and AI to address these challenges. Blockchain’s decentralized and tamper-resistant ledger guarantees data integrity and transparency, while its cryptographic methods offer strong protection against data tampering. In cognitive cities, blockchain establishes a secure, decentralized framework for managing large-scale data. Artificial intelligence enhances this by analyzing network traffic, detecting anomalies, and identifying potential security threats using machine learning models. The interaction between AI and blockchain enables real-time threat detection and mitigation, with AI flagging anomalies and blockchain ensuring the secure storage of events through its immutable ledger. This proactive approach strengthens the city’s security. The framework also includes secure communication protocols based on blockchain’s consensus mechanisms, ensuring encrypted data transmission. Additionally, a decentralized identity management system uses blockchain to provide secure digital identities for residents and devices, automating identity verification and access control. The framework’s effectiveness will be tested in a simulated cognitive city environment, focusing on smart healthcare, transportation, and energy management. Key performance indicators such as data integrity, secure communication, and system resilience will demonstrate the framework’s capacity to enhance cybersecurity in real-world cognitive city applications.
... Smart Cities (SCs) represent a concept answering efficiency problems of modern cities [185]. This concept originated from the application of ICT methods to solve city challenges. ...
Interaction between people and artificial systems has been proven to empower the
collaboration between the involved actors, allowing people to get assistance in the
solution of problems. However, communication with artificial systems traditionally
strongly relies on concepts that are unnatural for people, such as protocols. This
makes this type of interaction very demanding for the users, especially compared
to the interaction that these entertain every day with other people.
This Ph.D. thesis explores a new interaction paradigm,phenotropic interaction,
that has the goal of allowing people to engage in a more natural conversation
with artificial systems. This is achieved with the proposal of the literature-backed
framework of phenotropic interaction, allowing to satisfy the fundamental aspects
that have been studied to make the interaction more natural and similar to communication between people. This is complemented by the implementation, following
the design science research process, of some methods for the effective understanding and reasoning with human perceptions, which are fundamental concepts for
the expression of desires and feelings, thanks to the application, between others, of
the theories of computing with words and perceptions and of analogical reasoning.
Finally, concrete applications of the phenotropic interaction framework, employing the developed methods, are presented in the contexts of a natural interactive
virtual assistant prototype, and in the interaction between the citizens and the
smart city ecosystem. These are also used in user studies as a basis to analyze the
impact of phenotropics on the quality of the interaction with these smart systems.
The outcome of this Ph.D. thesis demonstrates the potential of phenotropic interaction in the development of interfaces that are natural, adaptive, and understandable for people while using simple and sustainable bio-inspired methods.
... The DT approach can be useful in addressing central challenges to today's smart cities, including how to access, process, and use data in the urban landscape (see Finger & Portmann, 2016;Tabacchi et al., 2019). To determine the effectiveness of this approach, we investigate a joint project between seven German municipalities that utilizes in the concrete implementation of a project based on a use case. ...
Innovative collaboration strategies are a promising tool for fostering the governance of smart cities while acknowledging citizen centricity. During implementation, however, determining the number and background of the involved actors is challenging. The Design-Thinking (DT) approach appears suitable for addressing this issue as it offers a concrete and adaptable course of action. The present contribution involves a study on implementing DT principles in a German health resort and identifies three critical components: (1) team, (2) process, and (3) workspace. Our use case is an adaptable project- and workshop plan that encourages the implementation of DT collaboration in smart cities when designing digital services. Our results provide initial guidelines on how to involve diverse actors, when to integrate trained DT coaches, and how to design collaborative innovation in a digital way. The practice-oriented insights gained in the study can be applied, adapted, and discussed in other smart cities and citizen-centered projects.
... Here, we summarize some of the common definitions of the term in the literature in Table 1. Smart city The application of massive amounts of digital data collected about society as a means to rationalize the planning and management of cities Geographical Data 2014 [11] Smart city The ability to promote economic growth B T [11] Smart city A technocratic view of urban management and government Public policy Social 2016 [12] Smart city A city that makes optimal use of all interconnected information available today to better understand and control its operations and optimize the use of limited resources Commercial Technology 2011 [13] ...
The need for a smart city is more pressing today due to the recent pandemic, lockouts, climate changes, population growth, and limitations on availability/access to natural resources. However, these challenges can be better faced with the utilization of new technologies. The zoning design of smart cities can mitigate these challenges. It identifies the main components of a new smart city and then proposes a general framework for designing a smart city that tackles these elements. Then, we propose a technology-driven model to support this framework. A mapping between the proposed general framework and the proposed technology model is then introduced. To highlight the importance and usefulness of the proposed framework, we designed and implemented a smart image handling system targeted at non-technical personnel. The high cost, security, and inconvenience issues may limit the cities’ abilities to adopt such solutions. Therefore, this work also proposes to design and implement a generalized image processing model using deep learning. The proposed model accepts images from users, then performs self-tuning operations to select the best deep network, and finally produces the required insights without any human intervention. This helps in automating the decision-making process without the need for a specialized data scientist.
... Si au départ les organisations en question sont principalement des entreprises (Lundvall et Johnson 1994), les entités collectives considérées se diversifient : au niveau des régions et de leurs réseaux d'acteurs structurants (incluant des acteurs publics locaux) (Kostiainen 2002 ;Capello 1999 ;Polenske 2004), mais aussi au niveau des villes (Larsen 2011). Ainsi, des travaux sur les learning cities (Campbell 2009 ;Blanco et Campbell 2006), ou encore sur les cognitive cities voient le jour (Finger et Portmann 2016). Ce dernier label est particulièrement intéressant en ce sens qu'il est présenté comme un prolongement de la smart city et de la learning city : ...
Cette thèse examine les relations politiques entre villes européennes depuis 2000. Nous analysons les systèmes de relations formés par les projets de coopération de l’Union Européenne et par les associations transnationales de municipalités, grâce à la construction de deux bases de données. Notre démarche exploratoire fondée sur l’analyse spatiale, l’analyse de réseaux et la statistique textuelle, permet de décrire l’espace européen de coopération, d’étudier les réseaux d’affiliation et d’analyser les modèles urbains qui circulent à travers ces canaux. L’objectif est de repenser le transnational comme processus à travers lequel des politiques locales sont sélectionnées, comparées et érigées en "best practices", renforçant ainsi des normes d’action publique à l’échelle européenne. La coopération entre villes se déploie sur de larges ensembles régionaux et témoigne de niveaux d’internationalisation congruents avec la taille et le statut administratif des villes. Si les plus petites villes sont moins impliquées, leur participation peut s’avérer déterminante pour gagner en visibilité et porter une voix collective. Les politiques locales, telles que médiatisées au sein des réseaux, participent à la circulation de discours sur le pouvoir urbain s’exprimant dans la langue du néolibéralisme. Toutefois, l’étude de la construction de la catégorie des « petites villes » révèle un paysage plus complexe où coexistent la tentation d’entrer dans la compétition interurbaine et des stratégies écologistes et sociales de long terme, contestant alors le tropisme métropolitain des politiques étatiques et de l’UE ainsi que les apories du développement géographique inégal inhérent au capitalisme.
... With regard to urban management, the concept "smart cities" leaves new urban challenges out of reach. These challenges not only require improved efficiency, but also demand approaches based on sustainability and resilience [18]. To better understand how the problems related to Cognitive Urban Planning have been addressed, this section describes a systematic literature review (SLR) of the technological strategies applied in the domain. ...
The need of citizens engagement in modeling the vast amount of services provided by governments has led to mechanisms where people are seen as sensors. Development policies, processes, and aims are evolving regarding urban planning in order to use citizens-generated data as input in the intelligent systems. This data may be a rich source to mine citizens’ current requirements, detect serious problems in a city and determine what is urgent and what is not. Citizens as sensors is a new paradigm that transforms the idea of efficiency implemented in a “smart city” into the notion of resilience oriented to “cognitive cities”. In this regard, a systematic literature review of how intelligent systems have been employed towards modeling cognition in urban planning was conducted. This work propose a classification on how intelligent systems are being approached: Implementations in intelligent governance, big data and analytic solutions, fuzzy methods, and application scenarios toward cognitive urban planning. Moreover, this study details a comparison of the approaches mentioned above in terms of technology targeted and/or computing methods employed, as well as the advantages of the proposed works and their limitations. The results of the present review revealed that previous studies contributed with combined strategies that apply soft computing methods, but the implementation of empirical validations has not been studied in depth.
... Cognitive cities are seen as an advancement of smart cities [1]. The smart city concept is typically bounded to sensing data and processing it for the sake of obtaining efficiency and sustainability in a city service [2] (i.e. ...
... This cognitive city vision would allow to empower every citizen with collective intelligence learning resources to address individual efficiency and resiliency on their everyday's life in the city [9,10]. Also, an evolutionary cognitive city view was presented in [11]. According to the authors, the emergent socio-technical system would be able to learn, and adapt to shocks from its environment, thanks to the collaborative intelligence of the cognitive actors in the city. ...
Smart cities result from the wide adoption of information and communication technologies aimed at addressing challenges arising from overpopulation and resources shortage. Despite their important and fundamental contributions, ICT alone can hardly cope with all the challenges posed by growing demands of overpopulated cities. Hence, novel approaches based on innovative paradigms are needed.
... Built upon the theory of connectivism, knowledge development is formed through networks and ICT connects different actors among them, people with each other but also with institutions and organizations. According to Finger and Portmanm, a city's resilience results from the ability of every single actor in a city to develop autonomously through ICT networks (Finger and Portmann, 2016). ...
Recent approaches in human intelligence have provided us with a broader understanding about its multiplicity and its dynamic nature. The human capacity to imagine beyond the existing has led to the creation of utopias as a way to fantasize about future societies and future cities. The current article explores how the concept of human intelligence is reflected in urban utopias. More specifically, it focuses on two current urban utopias, which are the predominant urban visions for the digital era: Smart and Cognitive cities. The vision of smart cities, grounded in the intensive use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for the sustainable development of cities, gained a lot of popularity and a wide range of smart city initiatives have been implemented across the world. Apart from the criticism for the technological determinism of smart cities and for endorsing a corporate vision of cities, it is argued that the dominant approach of smart cities consider intelligence as a mainly technological function. Based on advances in cognitive computing, cognitive cities expand the concept of smart cities through the introduction of cognition and learning. The article concludes with some thoughts on intelligence and the function of utopian thinking, and underlines the role of technology as one among many interrelated elements that compose our cities.
... The concept of Cognitive City was introduced to emphasize the role of learning, memory creation and experience retrieval as central processes for coping with current challenges of efficiency, sustainability and resilience [1]. In a nutshell, an intelligent and distributed collaboration takes place between the Cognitive City and its citizens. ...
In modern cities, everything is connected to Internet and the amount of data available on-line grows dramatically. Humans face two main challenges: i) to extract valuable knowledge from the Big Data; ii) to become part of the equation as active actors in the Internet of Things. Fuzzy intelligent systems are currently used in many applications in the context of Smart Cities. Now, it is time to address the effective interaction between
intelligent systems and citizens with the aim of passing from Smart to Cognitive Cities. We claim that the use of interpretable fuzzy systems and natural language generation can facilitate such interaction and pave the way towards Cognitive Cities.
... " Cognitive cities are not only a necessary but as an enhancement also a more appropriate concept, especially when it comes to addressing the challenge of urban resilience. (Finger and Portmann, 2016: 4). It can be thought that cities have certain consciousness and they give messages to the cities in order to survive. ...
Cities are living spaces in which individuals experience with their sensorial properties, collect memories, have visual image, communication and interaction exist. Individual and societies are linked to each other with a language and similarly, cities have pattern system, texture and layers. Therefore, the power of the ability of communication and self-expression of cities can be mentioned. Cities, in historical process, have visual values which they create with the factors such as culture, life style, art, architecture, morphology, climatic conditions. Feeling psychologically and physically good in a certain place is closely related to aesthetic experience and environmental psychology. The main aim of urban design is to realize the multi-component urban variances from ecological balance to socio-cultural life and the spatial designs which the society will feel good by keeping social values. While neuroscience takes decision depending on perception system created by senses, it makes the mechanism and structure of brain observable and visual. The aesthetic experience depended on urban communication and interaction can be expressed as the process which ends when dopamine level increases depending on discovering innovations, feeling pleasure, making a choice. Neuroaesthetics which makes brain's activities measurable while aesthetic perception is experienced has become an interdisciplinary field among health sciences, psychology, art and environmental psychology. The aim of the study is to interpret the urban experience by analysing the studies discussing the subjects of neuroaesthetics, esthetic experience and city together.
Obviously, communities want to develop a favorable reference story about themselves, one that (a) maximizes the positive attributes and potentials and minimizes the less desirable attributes and (b) provides a benchmark (i.e., a set of reference values) against which progress generated by their efforts (and others) can be measured. This module provides a set of tools for managing eco-city projects.
Modern cities strive to achieve a balanced interplay between several stakeholders, forming complex sociotechnical systems. The concept of human smart city (HSC) emerged to emphasize and promote citizen-centric development, active citizen engagement, and collaborations between stakeholders. To effectively involve citizens in the development process of HSCs, digital points of contact are essential. These interfaces facilitate exchanges between the city and its residents, offering opportunities for participation. Notably, digital platforms enable broader citizen engagement, complementing traditional collaborative events and experiments. In this chapter, two projects applying the principles of phenotropic interaction in the context of HSC are presented. The first, Jingle Jungle Maps, focuses on the estimation of urban sounds through crowdsourced data, serving as an indirect communication channel between citizens and the city. The second, Streetwise, employs street-level imagery to estimate a map of citizens’ perceptions of different city areas. These citizen–city phenotropic interfaces enhance understanding of citizens’ needs, desires, and perceptions of the urban environment, allowing for improved adaptation of the city and prediction of issues based on latent city data. The chapter concludes by observing that by embracing phenotropic design principles, cities can establish robust, flexible, and citizen-centered digital interfaces, fostering more inclusive and responsive development.
More than half the population today lives in urban areas. The UN predicts with 80% confidence that the global population will get to between 9.6 billion and 12.3 billion people within the 21st century. Population increase leads to more people in the city. More people in the city translates to new challenges that need addressing. When addressing the new challenges, cities evolve by improving the efficiency of services. Eventually, cities change in both structure and composition. In helping show how the cities have changed, the authors utilized the industrial revolution theory which occurred in stages from the first industrial revolution to Industry 5.0. Just like the industrial revolution, cities evolve in stages with the latter stage using the success of the former stage as building blocks. Smart cities which are characterized by progressive city plans and state-of-the-art infrastructure act as a building block for cognitive cities which are characterized by the ability to have connectivity, and common data architecture for people to share and drive innovation.
The complexity of democratic public decision-making has augmented with the surge of volumes of information. One response is using digital tools in decision-making processes to enable more flexibility than the conventional yes or no responses. We proposed a solution for a large-scale democratic decision-making process using soft computing and fuzzy logic, based on systemic consensus and action design research. Our integrative fuzzy decision-making process was designed to allow the consideration of all the arguments, the deliberation of all the alternatives, and the assessment of each alternative using comparative linguistic expressions. The method was used to resolve a conflict-generating traffic problem in Geuensee, a municipality in the Swiss canton of Luzern. The citizens voted on two dimensions of resistance and support about each of the proposed alternatives. The results were computed using fuzzy membership functions and a fuzzy logic table, evaluated with different computational variants. The output was a ranking of the best options, as assessed by the decision-makers. We found that this method for smart participation of citizens was accepted and generated involvement, leading to an effective outcome for the decision-makers. In the last section, we discuss evaluation and ethical considerations.Keywordsparticipative decision makingfuzzy votingfuzzy logiccomparative linguistic expressionssmart governancecognitive cities
Nowadays, cognitive computing has become the popular solution to many problems arising in the energy industry, such as the creation of renewable technologies, energy saving, and searching for new sources. Last decade, a substantial number of scientific papers aiming to support these tasks were published. On the other hand, some years ago, the “cognitive enterprise” (CE) concept was introduced by the IBM company, which assumes, among others, the cognitive technologies used to increase enterprise intelligence. On the road to obtaining the status of a “cognitive enterprise”, it should overcome many challenges. Thus, the aim of the paper was to analyze the current state of research on the application of cognitive computing in the energy industry and to define the trends, challenges, milestones, and perspectives in scientific work’s development. The aim has been achieved using the bibliometric approach. The preliminary analysis was made by Web of Science data sources; 4182 records were retrieved. The results comprise the research field, geographic distribution of research, time analysis, and affiliation analysis. Additionally, descriptive statistics, as well as simple forecasting, were provided to present the research results. As a result of the research, the publication history road was created as well as the milestone framework on the path toward “cognitive enterprise”. The findings of this research can contribute to literature and practice by applying them to the process of cognitive enterprise models’ development as well as by adapting the education programs and training courses for enterprises and universities to market requirements.
Abstract A dynamic digital twin is a feasible solution that can be employed to build real‐time connectivity between virtual and physical objects. Industries like manufacturing, aerospace and healthcare utilise dynamic digital twins for simulation, monitoring and control purposes, but recently, this nascent technology has also attracted the interest of urban designers. Due to the novelty of the dynamic digital twin in urban design, this research study addresses the concept of digital twin technology and investigates its applicability in so‐called smart city settings. Drawing on results from research interviews and examples from the Digital Twin project in Helsinki city, the research illustrates that solid data infrastructure forms the foundation for urban digital twins and the development of future smart city applications and services. Furthermore, data‐enriched digital twins evidently accelerate smart city experimentations and strengthen both learning and knowledge‐based decision‐making. Digital twins have also proved that they offer an environment in which smart city practitioners can bridge multi‐stakeholder urban design teams through one digital platform.
Seen from the perspective of Philosophy of Organism, technical artifacts are generated from the process of giving them the biological features of organisms, from humans to natural objects. It shows that the technological system bears a certain degree of organic features. Meanwhile, as the place for living in human society, cities are not only corporate supports of biological, artificial, social and mental organisms, but also the platform of interaction among all types of those organisms. The constant development of cities is promoted by the interaction of those organisms. In contrast, the mutual restriction among them leads to different kinds of “urban faults”, which have particularly stood out in modern cities. The rapid increase of complex artifacts results in the expansion of social organisms and the anxiety of mental organisms and further affects the health of biological organisms as humans. To achieve the goal of sustainable development of modern cities, it is important for technology to play the proper role in cities in order to adjust the scale, growth rate and functional orientation of all types of organisms. Its aim is to construct a harmonious relationship among biological, artificial, social and mental organisms. In this respect, the idea that “Tao models itself after nature” from Chinese philosophy will be inspiring because “nature” is just the harmonious state of all types of organisms. To conclude, the “Tao” of the city’s mode of development mode is towards the harmonious state of organisms.
An interest in research, deliberation, and reflection on urbanity has been present for a long time. Due to rapid urbanisation in the last few decades, such interest has intensified, attracting scholars from different disciplines and creating new platforms for discussion. The first indicators of a ‘bioethical’ interest in urban life are already present in Van Rensselaer Potter’s early papers (urban ethics. However, more extensive research into urban bioethics remained on hold until recently, mainly due to the dominance of the biomedical paradigm within modern mainstream bioethics. In 2017, the European Bioethics in Action project (funded by the Croatian Science Foundation) ended, resulting in a list of general bioethical standards related to animals, plants, and human health. The aim of this paper is to present the rationale for developing bioethical standards in a specific urban context.
Facing the challenges in a city that is to be understood as a complex construct, this article presents a solution approach for the further development of existing conversational agents, which should be used particularly in cities, for instance, as a source of information. The proposed framework consists of a fuzzy analogical reasoning process (based on structure-mapping theory) and a network-like memory (i.e., fuzzy cognitive maps stored in graph databases) as additions to the general architecture of a chatbot. Thus, it represents a concept of a global fuzzy reasoning process, which allows conversational agents to emulate human information processing by using cognitive computing (consisting of soft computing methods and cognition and learning theories). The framework is already in the third iteration of its development. Three experiments were conducted to examine the stability of the theoretical foundation as well as the potential of the framework.
Current cities address efficiency challenges for optimizing the use of limited resources. City sustainability and resilience must also be improved through new learning and cognitive technologies that change citizen behavioural patterns and react to disruptive changes. These technologies will allow the evolution of current cities towards the so called “Cognitive Cities”. This chapter highlights the importance of Semantic Web and semantic ontologies as a foundation for learning and cognitive systems. Energy is one of the city domains where learning and cognitive systems are needed. This chapter reviews Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-based energy management solutions developed to improve city energy efficiency, sustainability and resilience. The review focuses on learning and cognitive solutions that improve energy sustainability and resilience through Semantic Web technologies. In addition, these solutions are evaluated from level of acceptance and use of semantics perspectives. The evaluation highlights that the Cognitive City approach is in the early stages in the energy domain and demonstrates the need for a standard energy ontology.
The following text intends to give an introduction into some of the basic ideas which determined the conception of this book. Thus, the first part of this article introduces the terms “City”, “Smart City” and “Cognitive City”. The second part gives an overview of design theories and approaches such as Action Design Research and Ontological Design (a concept in-the-making), in order to deduce from a theoretical point of view some of the principles that needs to be taken into account when designing the Cognitive City. The third part highlights some concrete techniques that can be usefully applied to the problem of citizen communication for Cognitive Cities (namely Metaheuristics, Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic, Computing with Words, Computational Intelligence Classifiers, and Fuzzy-based Ontologies). Finally, we introduce the articles of this book.
This paper argues that the mainstream urban governance approaches are built upon the legacy of reductionist doctrine and public administration tools which are not fully compatible with the complex nature of urban infrastructure systems. However, recent technological innovations associated with the notion of smart cities and the emerging sociopolitical trends are opening up new opportunities to develop governance approaches that can overcome such incompatibilities in urban systems. On the other hand, successful introduction of innovations in urban infrastructures, which we understand as complex sociotechnical systems, requires smarter governance approaches that are compatible with systems paradigm. The pace of change in social and technological landscapes of cities is fast. This conceptual paper brings together insights from sociotechnical systems, systems theory, and governance literature to shed light on why city administrations should closely follow these changes and adapt the governance approaches accordingly; or governance may become a main hindrance for utilizing the benefits of technology to deal with increasingly complex urban challenges.
The rapidly progressing digital revolution is now touching the foundations of the governance of societal structures. Humans are on the verge of evolving from consumers to prosumers, and old, entrenched theories - in particular sociological and economic ones - are falling prey to these rapid developments. The original assumptions on which they are based are being questioned. Each year we produce as much data as in the entire human history - can we possibly create a global crystal ball to predict our future and to optimally govern our world? Do we need wide-scale surveillance to understand and manage the increasingly complex systems we are constructing, or would bottom-up approaches such as self-regulating systems be a better solution to creating a more innovative, more successful, more resilient, and ultimately happier society? Working at the interface of complexity theory, quantitative sociology and Big Data-driven risk and knowledge management, the author advocates the establishment of new participatory systems in our digital society to enhance coordination, reduce conflict and, above all, reduce the "tragedies of the commons," resulting from the methods now used in political, economic and management decision-making. The author Physicist Dirk Helbing is Professor of Computational Social Science at the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences and an affiliate of the Computer Science Department at ETH Zurich, as well as co-founder of ETH''s Risk Center. He is internationally known for the scientific coordination of the FuturICT Initiative which focuses on using smart data to understand techno-socio-economic systems. "Prof. Helbing has produced an insightful and important set of essays on the ways in which big data and complexity science are changing our understanding of ourselves and our society, and potentially allowing us to manage our societies much better than we are currently able to do. Of special note are the essays that touch on the promises of big data along with the dangers…this is material that we should all become familiar with!" Alex Pentland, MIT, author of Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread - The Lessons From a New Science "Dirk Helbing has established his reputation as one of the leading scientific thinkers on the dramatic impacts of the digital revolution on our society and economy. Thinking Ahead is a most stimulating and provocative set of essays which deserves a wide audience." Paul Ormerod, economist, and author of Butterfly Economics and Why Most Things Fail. "It is becoming increasingly clear that many of our institutions and social structures are in a bad way and urgently need fixing. Financial crises, international conflicts, civil wars and terrorism, inaction on climate change, problems of poverty, widening economic inequality, health epidemics, pollution and threats to digital privacy and identity are just some of the major challenges that we confront in the twenty-first century. These issues demand new and bold thinking, and that is what Dirk Helbing offers in this collection of essays. If even a fraction of these ideas pay off, the consequences for global governance could be significant. So this is a must-read book for anyone concerned about the future." Philip Ball, science writer and author of Critical Mass "This collection of papers, brought together by Dirk Helbing, is both timely and topical. It raises concerns about Big Data, which are truly frightening and disconcerting, that we do need to be aware of; while at the same time offering some hope that the technology, which has created the previously unthought-of dangers to our privacy, safety and democracy can be the means to address these dangers by enabling social, economic and political participation and coordination, not possible in the past. It makes for compelling reading and I hope for timely action."Eve Mitleton-Kelly, LSE, author of Corporate Governance and Complexity Theory and editor of Co-evolution of Intelligent Socio-technical Systems
The year 1990 may well be viewed as the beginning of a new trend in the design of household appliances, consumer electronics, cameras, and other types of widely used consumer products. The trend in question relates to a marked increase in what might be called the Machine Intelligence Quotient (MIQ) of such products compared to what it was before 1990. Today, we have microwave ovens and washing machines that can figure out on their own what settings to use to perform their tasks optimally.
Biomimetics in design-oriented information systems research At the Vanguard of Design Science: First Impressions and Early Findings from Ongoing Research Research
- M Kaufmann
- E Portmann
- B Donnellan
- R Gleasure
- M Helfert
- J Kenneally
- M Rothenberger
- Chiarini Tremblay
- M Vandermeer
- D Winter
Handbook of Collective Intelligence
- T Malone
- M Bernstein
Cognitive cities and intelligent urban governance
- A Mostashari
- F Arnold
- M Mansouri
- M Finger
Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia
- A M Townsend
- AM Townsend
Thinking Ahead-Essays on Big Data
- D Helbing
Biomimetics in design-oriented information systems research
- M Kaufmann
- E Portmann
- B Donnellan
- R Gleasure
- M Helfert
- J Kenneally
- M Rothenberger
- M Chiarini Tremblay
- D Vandermeer