Ricerc@Sapienza

Increasingly, we hear of ‘smart’ cities, communities, governance and people as constituting the basis of initiatives by which we might address various social and environmental problems, particularly those connected with sustainability, usually by means of an ‘intelligent’ connection with the ‘network society’. This book addresses the issues raised by the emergence of ‘smart’ dimensions and initiatives in society, critically engaging with questions surrounding the feasibility of what smart initiatives propose and the extent to which they can really offer solutions to the challenges we face.

The chapter aims at investigating the concept of smart community starting from the definition of the concept. It is a conceptual category increasingly used and which is complementary to other concepts currently objects of reflection such as – among others – those of smart cities and smart society. We will then try to identify the characteristics of the smart community which differentiate it from related concept, focusing, moreover, on the role played by science and technology.

A partire dall’introduzione di nuove tecnologie come Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, e Nanotechnology (GRAIN) e dagli sviluppi delle scienze cognitive, si sta assistendo ad una ridefinizione del ruolo dell’individuo all’interno della società. Ciò sta causando al contempo una profonda trasformazione dei sistemi culturali, fisiologici e biologici su cui poggia la società stessa. I principali attori e i principali destinatari di questi cambiamenti sono gli Smart People. Ma cosa indica questo termine? Chi sono gli Smart People?

With the introduction of digital technologies in every area of our daily life, the way people conceive cities with their squares, streets and infrastructures has radically changed. In their race for sustainability and smartness, cities are adapting their urban models to new ways of life that are radically different from the past and that are inspired by principles connected to ecology, democracy and well-being. To change is not only the geographical or architectonic characteristic of the place, but also its sense in the individual and collective identity dimension.

Economia, potere, così come case, persone e lavoro, ma prima di ogni altra cosa città: tutto negli
ultimi anni è chiamato a diventare “smart”. È questa l’era della smart economy, della smart
governance, della smart home, delle smart people, dello smart work e della sempre più
imperante smart city. Con il sostegno della scienza, o meglio delle diverse scienze (ingegneria,
politologia, urbanistica, architettura, sociologia, etc.) che ne spieghino i fondamenti a monte e

The aim of this essay is to analyze the concept of smartness in the debate around the smart society from a sociological point of view