(by Serafeim Makris) Presentation of a dissertation "Analysis of the intertwining factors underpinning Smart Cities: A Systems Thinking Approach" for partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Informatics and Telematics , Harokopio University, Athens-Greece (2018)

1. Analysis of the intertwining
factors underpinning Smart
Cities: A Systems Thinking
Approach
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science in informatics and Telematics , with a specialization in advanced
information systems in business at Harokopio University
By S.A.Makris

2. The approach taken
CONTEXT, MOTIVATION, OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY

3. Context and Motivationcontext
 Today ‘s Smart city notion” is driven by
technology
 Smart city is more smart and less city.
 The tendency is to see Smart city as an
object rather than a process.
Motivation
 A holistic view coupled with urban theory is
required
 We need to understand the unified forces of
change rather than a micro exetasis of the
details of it in a reductionist fashion.
 Multiple stake with different agendas or
obgectives thus a learning approach about
“smartness”

4. Objectives
• To present a holistic, a macroscopic view
of what can be inferred as “smartness” in the urban
context.
• To analyze the domain concepts and
notions in a smart city by employing the tools of
Systems Thinking
• To augment Systems Thinking approach
by designing an ontology type artifact that
corresponds to that understanding
• To present a way of identification for the
Stakeholders of smart city (the designers,
the actors of transformations, the beneficiaries or
wounded by the transformations)
• To employ the notion of learning as the
Activity that unifies systems thinking plus
urban theory and ontological and epistemological
parts of the approach

5. A methodology of
designing the approach
• Adopts a design research methodology with main
activities
• Activity 1: problem identification and motivation
• Activity 2: define the objectives “what is possible and
feasible” , “how the new artifact is expected to support
solutions to problems not hitherto addressed”
• Activity 3: Creation of the artifact which in our case will be a
methodology
Activity 1:
Identify
problem
and
Motivate
Activity 2:
Define
Objectives
of a solution
Activity 3:
Design and
Developmen
t
Activity 4
Demonstration
Activity 5
Evaluation
Activity 6
Communication
Inference Theory
How to
Knowledge
Metrics,
Analysis
Disciplinary
knowledge
Problem
Centered
Initiation
Possible Research Entry Points
Source: Peffers, Tuunanen,
Rothenberger, & Chatterjee, 2008

6. Activities to achieve objectives
• An elaboration of the smart cities notion
through a selective literature is provided
• Systems thinking and especially Soft
Systems Methodology, was selected as the
theoretical tool for the attempted “design” of
the process
• The notion of City as Urban Context
through the lens of a specific urban theory is
pursued to achieve the anchoring of SSM to
the concepts of Urban context
• An ontology type/like artifact was sketched
to augment the SSM “epistemology”
• A learning theory as a unified approach
Activities
1 & 2
Activity 3
Activities
2 & 3
Activity 3
Activity 3

7. Perhaps thousands
of definitions
...but only a few
systems thinking
approaches
...a lot of domain
concepts that
implicitly point to
“systems”
...an apparent
ICTization
...no anchoring to
an Urban Theory
...a black box of
transformation
....a
bewilderment in
the face of
complexity
...a lot of
different
Stakeholders
People act
purposefully not
randomly
History matters
Lots of feedback
loops are present
Levels of abstraction
Worldviews that change
Smart city:
a
wicked
problem
“class of social system problems which are ill-formulated,
where the information is confusing, where many
stakeholders have conflicting values and where the
ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly
confusing” Source:(Rittel & Webber, 1973)

8. The Missing Link
THE NEED FOR AN URBAN THEORY

9. An Urban Theory
Why an Urban theory? “Cities are living systems, made, transformed and experienced by
people. Urban forms and functions are produced and managed by
the interaction between space and society that is by the historical
relationship between human consciousness, matter, energy and
information”.
Following Manuel Castels in his opening sentence
in The City and the Grassroots: (Castells, 1983)
Which Urban Theory?
“The Urban is the result of the complexification
of the social”
“Something is always happening in urban
space”
Based on Henri Lefebvre’s The Urban Revolution and The Production of Space
“is the result of a history that must be conceived as
the work of social “agents” or “actors”, of collective
“subjects” acting in successive thrusts,
discontinuously (relatively) releasing and fashioning
layers of space. (…) From their interactions, their
strategies, successes and failures, arise the qualities
and the “properties” of the urban space”
First, urban space is the space of the ephemeral, the
multifunctional, the polyvalent or the
transfunctional. The Urban is not just a collection of
fixed structures (material or social) defined by visible
boundaries but is also home of actions or activities
that come to existence only to live shortly before
they “soon destroyed”

10. An Urban Theory: Lefebvrian ideas of Space
this is everyday life, space as directly,
bodily, materially lived through its
associated images and symbols and
hence the space of inhabitants and
users.
the conceived space , the space of Strategy and Ideological
Hegemony produced by institutionalized actors that create a
new learning of Space (an abstracted Space) as they elaborate
on Spatial Practice and Representational Spaces by the means
of formalization and logical order
Social space contains a
great diversity of objects,
both natural and social,
including the networks and
pathways which facilitate
the exchange of material
things and information.

11. Smart city emerges through causality
creates
yields
re-evaluates
re-creates
smartness emerges

12. The Systemic Inquiry
SOFT SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY FOR A WICKED PROBLEM

13. The SSM cycle explained
Analysis 1: The
intervention
The CATWOE
Analysis 2 or
analysis of the
Power issues
Analysis 3 or
Social and
Political
The wicked
problem: a
broad view
C for
Custom
ers
A for
Actors
T for
Transfor
mation
W for
Worldvi
ew
E for
Environ
ment
O for
Owner
A root definition “An O-
owned system, operated
by A, to do X by Y in order
to satisfy the requirements
of C within the constraints
E”

14. Making Sense: SSM methodology

15. Using SSM: thinking in layers and in
Human Activity Systems
Level in
systems
hierarchy
Human Activity System
Level-0 (the
wider level)
EconS, the Urban Economy (any
financial, trade or other economic
transaction, human activities)
Level-0 (the
wider level)
TechS, the Urban Technology as a collection of human
activities bearing innovation (in methods, organization
and machines) or mediating change (between the other
two wider systems, namely the Urban Economy System
and the Urban Social and Political System) or modifying
time and space relation in the urban context).
Level-0 (the
wider level)
SoPoS, the Social and Political System
activities of the urban context as flows of
current urban activity or stocks of more
permanent activities.

16. Using SSM: Middle Layer Human Activity Systems
(or level-1)
Level-1 HAS
Transport
Energy
Environment
Safety
Culture
Social Welfare
Governance

17. Therefore produces a
number of Transport
activities (as it is
organized or as is
attended)
A Cultural activity (e.g
A festival is
organized)
A number of
Governance activities
are invoked (a permit
may be needed)
But , through energy and
transport the culture activity
produces an Environmental
Print (as waste is produced
or congestion is due to
increased uses of may occur)
But the transport
activities to happen
trigger a network of
Energy (producing and
consuming) activities
A Social Welfare activity is
also happening: the
festival changes the
quality of life (either
positively or negatively)
A number of Safety
activities are also
happening (consider the
policing of the venue or
the streets towards it)
Possible 1st and 2nd
order interactions

18. The Economy as Human Activity System
A Conceptual
Model for
structuring thinking
about Economy as
a Human Activity
System

19. The Technology as Human Activity System
A Conceptual
Model for
structuring
thinking about
Technology as
a Human
Activity System

20. The Socio-Political as Human Activity System
A Conceptual
Model for
structuring thinking
about Socio-
Political as a
Human Activity
System

21. 1. Create and make publicly available a
digital platform where customers will
announce their transport activities
(moving from A to B or interested in
attending event in C or need an
application to minimize own trips to the
city or ask for permission to close a road
for any reason etc)
3. In the same digital platform produce and
transmit an image of how the city is moving
using
a. estimations based on activity 2 and
b. aggregate mobile phones traces or by
any other suitable technology (eg
sensors at certain roads) and distribute
alerts to customers and actors.
2. In the same digital platform make
publicly available an estimation of
incoming demand to city that originates
outside the boundary of the city eg from
ports, airports or rail stations etc.
5. Through the same platform make
publicly available how actors is placing
their capability to transfer, innovations
that concern the Transport activities
4. Decide/Update the Initial
Stakeholders to participate in CM
building (eg define Actors of Transport
activities (ie transport services,
technology firms or bodies dealing with
transport innovation and finally map and
publish their network)
6. Appreciate conditions that can alter
the transport activities (exogenous ones
as for example weather conditions or
endogenous ones as restrictions of due
to other activity systems (ie energy,
safety, social welfare etc)
7. Learning by Gather and Publish data,
Create and publish models, indicators and
alerts to appreciate course of action.
Interpret them by taking into account
Stakeholders Worldviews and
Preferences and re-iterate the process
8. Monitor 1-7
9. Take control
action
10. Define
Measures of
efficiency etc
Transport as H.A.S

22. An attempt for an “ontology like” artifact
Owner Actors
Environmental
Constraints
Transformation
Process
Weltanschauung
Customers
ShareAuthorize
Constrain Define
Impact
run
Source:(Gaspoz & Wand, 2012)

23. A learning unification
URBAN THEORY SSM CYCLE “ONTOLOGY”
COUPLED VIA A LEARNING THEORY
+ +

24. Meditation Artifacts || Transformation Process
Subject || Owner Object
Rules I I
Worldview Division of Labor
||ActorsCommunity || The networks of Stakeholders
Outcome
Conceptual
Model
Sense
making
Purpose of
Activity/ System
Activity Theory:
merging with SSM

25. Mediating artifacts // Tools and signs
Subject Object
Rules
Division of
LaborCommunity
Outcome
Sense making
Spatial Practice (Perceived Space)
Social space contains a great diversity of objects, both
natural and social, including the networks and pathways
which facilitate the exchange of material things and
information.
Conceived Space
tied to the relations of production and
to the ‘order’ which those relations
impose and hence to knowledge, to
signs, to codes and to ‘frontal’ relations
Lived Space
is “Ego, bed, bedroom, dwelling, house; or: square, church,
graveyard. It embraces the loci of passion, of action and
of lived situations, and thus immediately implies time”.
Activity Theory:
merging with Urban
Theory

26. A learning unification: a Mathesipolis
Stabilization
Resistance
Adjustment/E
nrichment
Breakthrough
Need
State
Double
bind
Mathesipolis, is a construct of a
learning model based on the SSM
cycle, an Urban context theory and the
Activity Theory of Learning.
“Smart city” has evolved from a
widespread definitional battle (of the
type “smart city is…”) to a new speak of
“our learning about smart city”
constructed as intervention for the
sense making of the problem through
an SSM cycle, coupled with a specific
Urban theory and augmented with
notions crafted by Activity Theory.
1. Questioning
Need State
2. Analysis
Questioning
3. Modelling
the situation
4. Examining
and testing the
new model
5.
Implementin
g the new
model
6. Reflecting on
the Process
7.Consolidating and
generalizing the new
practice
UrbanTheory
conceptstoguide
modelling
SSM conceptual models
produced using ontology
artifacts
SSMcycles
iterations
Learning
accumulates
source:(Engeström & Sannino, 2010)

27. A small recap
FROM “SMART CITY IS” TO “A CONSTRUCT OF KNOWLEDGE”

28. Smart city: literature vs contribution
Smart city is
 An “Eldorado” of ICTization of core city
functions
 A new phase or episode in the
transformation of capitalism at least in a
spatial dimension
 A new governance/management or
marketing agenda by those “governing”
the city or having the power to invoke
change for it
...Smart City may be thought as emerging
 as Human Activity Systems artifacts through
the systemic inquiry of the Urban context via Soft
Systems Methodology, interact
 Through an urban theory that understands Urban
as Social Systems producing Space, being complex and
dense and informs the systemic methodology with the l-
c-p triad of space production
 Through Learning Activity theory that couples the above
to the notion of a learning context , to a
Mathesipolis

29. Innovation and contribution
Shifts the focus to the process of constructing our
learning about the Urban context. It does so by:
• Engaging a systemic way (via a SSM cycle)
forming a structured debate among
Stakeholders
• Understanding social relations that create the
Urban context through the lens of an Urban
Theory
• Providing an “ontology type” artifact
• Coupling all these in a learning cycle to
eventually create a path to an envisioned future.
Thus our contribution to the motion of Smart City....

30. The way forward
 The way ahead could follow two strands:
 Focusing in particular and “well bounded” Urban contexts
and further elaborating on the aspects of the artifact
 Or, by selecting specific Cities and common specific
deployment of SSM cycles and reflect on the learning
produced and distributed in networks of Stakeholders,
reaching out for data rich such networks and base on
outcomes for further elaboration.

31. Thank you