The concept of the smart city has been quite fashionable in the policy arena in recent years and the question of how we can live “smartly” in a city has become the focus of policymakers and private industry. The label smart city is still quite a fuzzy concept and is used in ways that are not always consistent. However, starting from a general definition, what is central to the concept of the Smart City and what makes it differ from ‘sustainable cities’ or ‘ECO cities’ is the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the process of creating a more sustainable city but also the availability and quality of knowledge communication and social infrastructure. 

This first issue of TeMA, Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, volume no.6 deals with the subject of Smart City with reference to the urban scale. Accordingly, the papers tackle the different aspects characterizing a  smart urban development: ranging from the more specifically economic ones, targeted to the implementation of strategies expected to improve competitiveness of cities in the global scenario; to those more involved in environment questions aimed at identifying strategies for improving the city capability of facing the important challenges given by the ongoing climate change as well as by the ever-growing reduction of traditional energy resources, paying particular attention to the improvement of urban mobility and energy saving as well as of those connected with the quality of life of communities, with specific attention to the participation to decisions-making processes, equity in the access to resources, individual and collective safety, social cohesion.