Location

The concept of a „Smart City“ is nothing radically new, instead it is a natural continuation of the how we develop our cities and regions.

You might hear all kind of terms when it comes to the development of our spaces: green, sustainable, resilient, intelligent, 2.0, 3.0, connected, human centric, equitable, future (poof), climate neutral, innovative, just, circular to name just a few.

You do not have to choose if you want to be one of the above as all those terms have a core target that is worth working towards – we do not even want to argue that Smart Cities are the best choice of the abovementioned terms. Instead, I want to argue that you should choose the term that is closest to the core of your political agenda BUT the BABLE Smart City Platform will provide valuable information to all of the above – as the data we provide (for free) to you are for all practitioners to speed-up innovation to make our places more liveable – a core that all above mentioned terms share.

Now why have we chosen to use the term “smart” – well one of the core reasons is certainly that it is simple. It can be written and pronounced by people with many different backgrounds and mother-tongues. Another reason is certainly that a core part of the agenda of the European Union speaks of “smart and climate neutral cities” – where the 2nd part has only been added recently into the core concept acknowledging the Climate Emergency.