Smart growth: increasing the smartness of cities through smart healthcare solutions

Purpose – the aim of this paper is to reflect on the concept of ‘smart growth’ by looking at the perspective of the ethical economy (Arvidsson, 2010). In the article, we will depart from the study of the European ‘smart cities’ project, to observe how middle-sized cities could develop, ‘empowered by the spread of networked information and commu¬nication technologies’ (Arvidsson, 2010: 637). A univocal definition of ‘smart city’ has not been provided yet, but lists of characteristics contributing to make a city smart have been clearly identified (see Giffinger et al., 2007) Indeed, as part of a European project, the European smart cities ranking, has been already drawn up. As such, smart cities need to respect some criteria: 1.being medium-sized cities, 2. having at least one University and 3. having a catchment area less than 1.500,000 inhabitants. At the same time, characteristics that make cities smart include ‘factors around economic competitiveness’, ‘the quality of social interaction’, ‘aspects of political participation’, ‘the availability of information and communication technologies and modern and sustainable transport systems’, ‘attractive natural conditions’ and ‘various aspect of quality of life’(SRF, 2007: 11). As pointed out by Giffinger (2007), one of the main qualities of the ranking is that the economic dimension is not the only dimension taken into account in aiming to be a ‘smart city’. Instead, beside smart economy, a range of other factors - from the environment to citizens’ participation and public services provision - are deemed crucial to make a city smart.