ABSTRACT
This chapter begins the process of linking smartness as an emergent, perhaps trendy, if still heavily debated, meta-paradigm in global city-regionalism to the notion of transition. The critique of sustainable development – or simply "sustainability," as it was increasingly called in the late 1990s – as "oxymoronic" and/or a "mirage" stemmed from global political efforts in the 1980s to merge the apparently syncretic goals of economic development, social equity and ecological resiliency. The physical-material and architectonic goals of smart growth – around location, design and connectivity, respectively – nonetheless, together highlighted the special importance of the issue; that is, the procedural role of coordinated planning across a wider scalar platform, most prominently the global city-region as a key territorial space. In their review of the smart city concept Albino et al. note that: Cities worldwide have started to look for solutions which enable transportation linkages, mixed land uses and high-quality urban services with long-term positive effects on the economy.
