The COVID-19 pandemic has put lifestyles in question, changed daily routines, and limited citizen freedoms that seemed inalienable before. A human activity that has been greatly affected since the beginning of the health crisis is mobility. Focusing on mobility, we aim to discuss the transformational impact that the pandemic brought to this specific urban domain, especially with regards to the promotion of sustainability, the smart growth agenda, and the acceleration towards the smart city paradigm. We collect 60 initial policy responses related to urban mobility from cities around the world and analyze them based on the challenge they aim to address, the exact principles of smart growth and sustainable mobility that they encapsulate, as well as the level of ICT penetration. Our findings suggest that emerging strategies, although mainly temporary, are transformational, in line with the principles of smart growth and sustainable development. Most policy responses adopted during the first months of the pandemic, however, fail to leverage advancements made in the field of smart cities, and to adopt off-the-shelf solutions such as monitoring, alerting, and operations management.

Fundamental principles of modern cities and urban planning are challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the advantages of large city size, high density, mass transport, free use of public space, unrestricted individual mobility in cities. These principles shaped the development of cities and metropolitan areas for more than a century, but currently, there are signs that they have turned from advantage to liability. Cities Public authorities and private organisations responded to the COVID-19 crisis with a variety of policies and business practices. These countermeasures codify a valuable experience and can offer lessons about how cities can tackle another grand challenge, this of climate change. Do the measures taken during the COVID-19 crisis represent a temporal adjustment to the current health crisis? Or do they open new ways towards a new type of urban development more effective in times of environmental and health crises? We address these questions through literature review and three case studies that review policies and practices for the transformation of city ecosystems mostly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic: (a) the central business district, (b) the transport ecosystem, and (c) the tourism–hospitality ecosystem. We assess whether the measures implemented in these ecosystems shape new policy and planning models for higher readiness of cities towards grand challenges, and how, based on this experience, cities should be organized to tackle the grand challenge of environmental sustainability and climate change.

In the face of challenges like heatwaves, flooding, other extreme events, as well as increasing pollution and declining quality of life in cities, there is a growing demand for the preservation and expansion of urban green spaces, often driven by citizen-led transformations. This paper examines 100 urban greening projects initiated or supported by citizens globally, categorizing them according to the type of greenery, the stakeholders involved, the mode of implementation, and the use of smart technologies incorporated. We notice variations in green endeavors based on the stakeholders orchestrating them; most of the entirely citizen-led initiatives being aimed at the creation of urban farms and food growing, demonstrating the pressing need to secure food and self-determination in communities. More than half of the assessed initiatives that managed to scale up and multiply had public authorities providing a framework or a type of support for their development or an NGO or other organization providing expertise and mobilizing citizens at various stages. In terms of technological use, we mostly found that websites and social media platforms ease participatory endeavors and knowledge sharing of best practices, accelerating scaling efforts, while there is low integration of more advanced digital technologies, which, if used, could enable real-time monitoring of green spaces, inform evidence-based decision-making, and streamline processes in scaling up green initiatives.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put lifestyles in question, changed daily routines and limited citizen freedoms that seemed inalienable before. A human activity that was greatly affected since the beginning of the health crisis is mobility. Focusing on mobility, we aim to discuss the transformational impact that the pandemic brought on this specific urban domain, especially with regards to the promotion of the smart growth agenda and the acceleration towards the smart city paradigm. We collect 60 initial policy responses related to urban mobility from 86 cities around the world and analyse them based on the challenge they aim to address, the exact principles of smart growth and sustainable mobility that they encapsulate and the level of ICT penetration. Our findings suggest that emerging strategies, although mainly temporary, are transformational, in line with the principles of smart growth. As a result the pandemic becomes an opportunity for shifting towards more sustainable urban planning and mobility practices. However, most policy responses adopted during the first months of the pandemic fail to leverage advancements made in the field of smart cities, and to adopt off-the-shelf solutions such as in monitoring, alerting and operations management.

Fundamental principles of modern cities and urban planning are challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the advantages of large city size, high density, mass transport, free use of public space, unrestricted individual mobility in cities. These principles shaped the development of cities and metropolitan areas for more than a century, but currently, there are signs that they have turned from advantage to liability. Cities Public authorities and private organisations responded to the COVID-19 crisis with a variety of policies and business practices. These countermeasures codify a valuable experience and can offer lessons about how cities can tackle another grand challenge, this of climate change. Do the measures taken during the COVID-19 crisis represent a temporal adjustment to the current health crisis? Or do they open new ways towards a new type of urban development more effective in times of environmental and health crises? We address these questions through literature review and three case studies that review policies and practices for the transformation of city ecosystems mostly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic: (a) the central business district, (b) the transport ecosystem, and (c) the tourism-hospitality ecosystem. We assess whether the measures implemented in these ecosystems shape new policy and planning models for higher readiness of cities towards grand challenges. And how, based on this experience, cities should be organized to tackle the grand challenge of environmental sustainability and climate change.

Cities, public authorities, and private organizations respond to climate change with various green policies and strategies to enhance community resilience. However, these community-level transition processes are complex and require deliberate and collective planning. Under this context, the purpose of this study is to understand the energy actions taken at the local level, as well as to analyze the differences between the neighborhoods’ green energy transitions in terms of their socio-economic aspects, using a big data perspective. The paper is addressing the following question: what was the role that the pandemic played in accelerating or slowing Boston’s green investments, and to what extent do different racial and socioeconomic groups invest in green technologies during this period? The study aims to answer these research questions using the City of Boston as a case study to reveal different neighborhoods’ paths in achieving the transformation of city ecosystems towards green neutrality. Next, the theoretical framework builds the linkages among the city’s measures, climate actions proposed by the City of Boston, and their associated contexts and outcomes in shaping new policy and planning models for higher ‘green’ performance. Following the understanding of the actions, the neighborhoods’ socio-economic and building permit data were assessed to understand whether economic disparities exacerbated during the pandemic have affected neighborhoods’ performance in green transition. This method is applied in a comparative study of its 23 neighborhoods, using a dataset provided by Boston Area Research Initiative (BARI). Intriguingly, the paper’s findings show that racial differences within the city have no significant impact on tech-related expenditures. There is a clear negative correlation between poverty rate and investment, which indicates the reverse relationship between these socio-economic factors. The study concludes that city authorities will need to address the challenges of each community achieving green transition with more targeted programs based on its needs.