| Abstract |
Purpose - The development of smart cities has become a topic of huge interest in the academic and public debate (e.g. Albino et al. 2013; Bouton et al. 2013; ISTAT 2013). Specifically, scholars have highlighted the critical role that smart cities exert to improve the quality of life of their citizens (Lombardi et al. 2012; Ballas 2013). Therefore, the present study aims at shedding further light to this emerging issue, by providing empirical evidence on the factors which affect quality of life in smart cities. The focus is on the effects that environmental management may have on quality of life. Design/methodology/approach - This study is divided into two phases. The former consisted of a literature review about smart cities, their objectives, and implemented solutions. The latter analysed the influences exerted by two smart city characteristics, smart environment and smart energy, on a third characteristic, smart living (Giffinger et al. 2007). To this aim, we collected data regarding 133 different indicators referred to the city of Bari in Italy. To this purpose we used different data sources, among which ISTAT, ENEL, TERNA, Sole 24ore, and Legambiente. Then, we tested correlations between smart environment and smart living indicators as well as between smart energy and smart living ones. Originality/value - Literature has widely discussed the influence of mobility on pollution (e.g., Anderson, 1998; Wilson and Chakraborty, 2013), or how new sustainable mobility favours environment protection (e.g. Kenworthy, 2009; La Greca et al., 2011) and better health conditions (e.g., Karvonen et al., 1999; ISTAT, 2013). Nevertheless, the interactions between living conditions of cities and other factors, such energy and environmental management, have been scantly investigated. In this line of inquiry, only some empirical evidences have underlined the problems perceived in more sustainable cities (e.g. Southworth and Ben-Joseph, 2004; Yang 2008). Hence, we investigated the elements of energy and environmental management which influence the citizens' quality of life. Practical implications - This study provides interesting policy implications to enhance quality of life in smart cities. Specifically, we identified energy and environmental indicators having the greatest number of significant correlations with smart living indicators. Some of them are the consumption of water for domestic use, the number of pollutants, the separate collection of rubbish, and the consumption of electricity. |
