# IoT-Enabled Smart Sustainable Cities: Challenges and Approaches
## 3 Improving the Sustainability of a Smart City
### An Illustrative Smart City: Parma
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c c} \hline \hline \multicolumn{2}{c}{**2017**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**2018**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**2019**} \\ \hline
**Indicator** & **Rank** & **Indicator** & **Rank** & **Indicator** & **Rank** \\ \hline
**General** & **9** & **General** & **8** & **General** & **8** \\ \hline Poverty & 1 & – & – & & \\ \hline Economic Growth & 19 & Economic Development & 14 & Economic Solidity & 8 \\ \hline Employment & 11 & Work & 7 & & \\ \hline Research and Innovation & 26 & Research and Innovation & 20 & & \\ \hline Water and Air & 64 & Water and Air & 102 & & \\ \hline Energy & 50 & Energy & 23 & & \\ \hline Waste Management & 12 & Waste Management & 10 & Environmental Protection & 18 \\ \hline Soil and Territory & 4 & Soil and Territory & 1 & & \\ \hline Urban Green Areas & 67 & Urban Green Areas & 86 & & \\ \hline Culture and Tourism & 27 & Culture and Tourism & 26 & & \\ \hline - & - & Social Inclusion & 1 & Social Quality & 9 \\ \hline Education & 31 & Education & 9 & & \\ \hline Digital Transformation & 22 & Digital Transformation & 9 & Digital Transformation & 8 \\ \hline Sustainable Mobility & 8 & Sustainable Mobility & 13 & Sustainable Mobility & 12 \\ \hline Legality and Security & 64 & Legality and Security & 22 & & \\ \hline Governance and Participation & 7 & Civic Participation & 13 & Governance & 7 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Ranking of the city of Parma, Italy, from the iCityRank report, for the period 2017 \(\div\) 2019. Then, these SDGs have been deeply discussed during workshops and, as a result, different perspectives and ideas have been collected, processed, and consolidated into the definition of a comprehensive and shared smart city vision. More in detail, the Parma Futuro Smart initiative has been structured into the following series of events. * _Kick-off and Brainstorming World Cafe for Parma Futuro Smart_ (30 November 2017). * _Scenario--Vision Workshop_ (6 April 2018). * _From Scenarios to Roadmap Workshop_ (9 November 2018). * _Co-creation Workshop_ with the thematic groups (6 August 2020; 8 September 2020; 15 September 2020; 30 September 2020; 14 October 2020). * Presentation of the Smart City Governance Plan (planned at the end of 2020). These topics have been also included in the Smart City Protocol signed in May 2019 to formally engage nearly 40 stakeholders and create a cooperation platform to share projects and competences with the ultimate goal to firstly build a smart community to become then a smart and green city. Thanks to the participatory foresight process of Parma Futuro Smart, supported by the Ruggedised EU project, the city of Parma sets the goals for the next decade. The administration has decided to accelerate the process to fully turn Parma into a green city and the Smart City Action and Investment Plan (SCAIP) will be totally consistent with these goals and will help to achieve them. Parma pursues the farsighted goal to become a green city, based on the most crucial aspects of environmental quality: efficiency and circular use of resources, and mitigation and adaptation to climate change, enhancing the economic and social implications of a better quality of life and well-being at the urban level generated by a green economy. This view is also reflected in the 5 core pillars of the infrastructural and urban development planning of the city, a city without suburbs, with the aim to sew up the urban fabric, as follows. * Urban regeneration of the existing city, through economic incentives and regulations that guide the market towards the improvement to extant buildings, avoiding any further soil sealing. The plan also identifies 15 strategic areas of urban regeneration.