Smart City as an Urban Ecosystem

Traditionally, cities evolved over time into current quite rigid urban conurbations. As complexity of our political, social and economic environment increases, cities begin to experience new pressures - traffic congestion, pollution, immigration, overcrowding, inadequacy of services, to mention just a few, which affect both citizens and visitors. Digital technology now exists that we could use to turn rigid cities into Urban Ecosystems. The paper provides an updated definition of Smart City as an Urban Ecosystem, it analyses problems experienced by cities caused by complexity of the Internet-based global economy and describes an advanced solution - to design cities as urban ecosystems capable of delivering services to citizens and visitors under conditions of complexity. The authors have developed an evolutionary methodology that ensure a minimum of disruptions to city services during its transformation into an urban ecosystem. Design of Smart City ontology is provided as an example.