IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i14p5202-d386526.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Smart and Age-Friendly Cities in Romania: An Overview of Public Policy and Practice

Author

Listed:
  • Loredana Ivan

    (Department of Communication, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bulevardul Expoziţiei 30A, 012102 Bucharest, Romania)

  • Dorin Beu

    (Faculty of Building Services Engineering, Technical University of Cluj Napoca, Strada Memorandumului 28, 400114 Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

  • Joost van Hoof

    (Faculty of Social Work and Education, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Johanna Westerdijkplein 75, 2521 EN Den Haag, The Netherlands
    Institute of Spatial Management, Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Geodesy, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, ul. Grunwaldzka 55, 50-357 Wrocław, Poland)

Abstract

The role of smart cities in order to improve older people’s quality of life, sustainability and opportunities, accessibility, mobility, and connectivity is increasing and acknowledged in public policy and private sector strategies in countries all over the world. Smart cities are one of the technological-driven initiatives that may help create an age-friendly city. Few research studies have analysed emerging countries in terms of their national strategies on smart or age-friendly cities. In this study, Romania which is predicted to become one of the most ageing countries in the European Union is used as a case study. Through document analysis, current initiatives at the local, regional, and national level addressing the issue of smart and age-friendly cities in Romania are investigated. In addition, a case study is presented to indicate possible ways of the smart cities initiatives to target and involve older adults. The role of different stakeholders is analysed in terms of whether initiatives are fragmentary or sustainable over time, and the importance of some key factors, such as private–public partnerships and transnational bodies. The results are discussed revealing the particularities of the smart cities initiatives in Romania in the time frame 2012–2020, which to date, have limited connection to the age-friendly cities agenda. Based on the findings, a set of recommendations are formulated to move the agenda forward.

Suggested Citation

  • Loredana Ivan & Dorin Beu & Joost van Hoof, 2020. "Smart and Age-Friendly Cities in Romania: An Overview of Public Policy and Practice," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-25, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:14:p:5202-:d:386526
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/14/5202/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/14/5202/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. van Hoof, Joost & Verkerk, Maarten J., 2013. "Developing an integrated design model incorporating technology philosophy for the design of healthcare environments: A case analysis of facilities for psychogeriatric and psychiatric care in The Nethe," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 1-13.
    2. Aldona Podgórniak-Krzykacz & Justyna Przywojska & Justyna Wiktorowicz, 2020. "Smart and Age-Friendly Communities in Poland. An Analysis of Institutional and Individual Conditions for a New Concept of Smart Development of Ageing Communities," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-23, May.
    3. Joost Van Hoof & Jan K. Kazak & Jolanta M. Perek-Białas & Sebastiaan T. M. Peek, 2018. "The Challenges of Urban Ageing: Making Cities Age-Friendly in Europe," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-17, November.
    4. Hannah R. Marston & Joost van Hoof, 2019. "“Who Doesn’t Think about Technology When Designing Urban Environments for Older People?” A Case Study Approach to a Proposed Extension of the WHO’s Age-Friendly Cities Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-35, September.
    5. Robert G. Hollands, 2008. "Will the real smart city please stand up?," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 303-320, December.
    6. Vito Albino & Umberto Berardi & Rosa Maria Dangelico, 2015. "Smart Cities: Definitions, Dimensions, Performance, and Initiatives," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 3-21, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joost van Hoof & Hannah R. Marston, 2021. "Age-Friendly Cities and Communities: State of the Art and Future Perspectives," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-13, February.
    2. Songling Chang & Melanie Kay Smith, 2023. "Residents’ Quality of Life in Smart Cities: A Systematic Literature Review," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-17, April.
    3. Flaviana Rotaru & Andreea Matei & Sorana D. Bolboacă & Ariana Anamaria Cordoș & Adriana Elena Bulboacă & Călin Muntean, 2024. "Age-Inclusive Healthcare Sustainability: Romania’s Regulatory and Initiatives Landscape in the European Union Context," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-18, February.
    4. Ioannis Vardopoulos & Maria Papoui-Evangelou & Bogdana Nosova & Luca Salvati, 2023. "Smart ‘Tourist Cities’ Revisited: Culture-Led Urban Sustainability and the Global Real Estate Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-26, February.
    5. Dezhi Li & Wentao Wang & Guanying Huang & Shenghua Zhou & Shiyao Zhu & Haibo Feng, 2023. "How to Enhance Citizens’ Sense of Gain in Smart Cities? A SWOT-AHP-TOWS Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(3), pages 787-820, February.
    6. Laura Iosif & Cristina Teodora Preoteasa & Elena Preoteasa & Ana Ispas & Radu Ilinca & Cǎtǎlina Murariu-Mǎgureanu & Oana Elena Amza, 2021. "Oral Health Related Quality of Life and Prosthetic Status among Institutionalized Elderly from the Bucharest Area: A Pilot Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-10, June.
    7. Chunmei Zhang & Jun Yang, 2023. "Evaluation of the Quality of the Age-Friendly Environment in Liaoning Province," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-13, November.
    8. Liliya Eugenevna Ziganshina & Ekaterina V. Yudina & Liliya I. Talipova & Guzel N. Sharafutdinova & Rustem N. Khairullin, 2020. "Smart and Age-Friendly Cities in Russia: An Exploratory Study of Attitudes, Perceptions, Quality of Life and Health Information Needs," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-15, December.
    9. Laurentiu-Nicolae PRICOPE & Valentin-Marian ANTOHI & Romeo-Victor IONESCU & Dragos-Sebastian CRISTEA & Alina MECA & Monica-Laura ZLATI, 2023. "Case Study of Smart City Development in Romania," Economics and Applied Informatics, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 2, pages 21-30.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joost van Hoof & Hannah R. Marston, 2021. "Age-Friendly Cities and Communities: State of the Art and Future Perspectives," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-13, February.
    2. Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq & Alavaiola Faumatu & Maha Hussein & Muhammad Laiq Ur Rahman Shahid & Nitin Muttil, 2020. "Smart City-Ranking of Major Australian Cities to Achieve a Smarter Future," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-19, April.
    3. Sabina Baraniewicz-Kotasińska, 2022. "The Scandinavian Third Way as a Proposal for Sustainable Smart City Development—A Case Study of Aarhus City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-24, March.
    4. Eleftheria KOLOKYTHA & Georgios KOLOKYTHAS & Stavros VALSAMIDIS & Giannoula FLOROU, 2015. "The Contribution Of The Open Data To The Development Of The Smart Cities," Scientific Bulletin - Economic Sciences, University of Pitesti, vol. 14(2), pages 3-16.
    5. Łukasz Brzeziński & Magdalena Krystyna Wyrwicka, 2022. "Fundamental Directions of the Development of the Smart Cities Concept and Solutions in Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-52, November.
    6. Kristian Hoelscher, 2016. "The evolution of the smart cities agenda in India," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 28-44, March.
    7. Witold Chmielarz & Marek Zborowski & Alicja Fandrejewska & Mesut Atasever, 2021. "The Contribution of Socio-Cultural Aspects of Smartphone Applications to Smart City Creation. Poland–Turkey Comparison," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-23, May.
    8. El Barachi, May & Salim, Taghreed Abu & Nyadzayo, Munyaradzi W. & Mathew, Sujith & Badewi, Amgad & Amankwah-Amoah, Joseph, 2022. "The relationship between citizen readiness and the intention to continuously use smart city services: Mediating effects of satisfaction and discomfort," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. Nilssen, Maja, 2019. "To the smart city and beyond? Developing a typology of smart urban innovation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 98-104.
    10. Sung-Su Jo & Hoon Han & Yountaik Leem & Sang-Ho Lee, 2021. "Sustainable Smart Cities and Industrial Ecosystem: Structural and Relational Changes of the Smart City Industries in Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-17, September.
    11. Anna D’Auria & Marco Tregua & Manuel Carlos Vallejo-Martos, 2018. "Modern Conceptions of Cities as Smart and Sustainable and Their Commonalities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-18, July.
    12. Justyna Żywiołek & Francesco Schiavone, 2021. "Perception of the Quality of Smart City Solutions as a Sense of Residents’ Safety," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-16, September.
    13. Jianbo Han & Edwin H. W. Chan & Esther H. K. Yung & Queena K. Qian & Patrick T. I. Lam, 2022. "A Policy Framework for Producing Age-Friendly Communities from the Perspective of Production of Space," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-23, February.
    14. Parul Gupta & Sumedha Chauhan & M. P. Jaiswal, 2019. "Classification of Smart City Research - a Descriptive Literature Review and Future Research Agenda," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 661-685, June.
    15. Kyunam Kim & Jung-Kyu Jung & Jae Young Choi, 2016. "Impact of the Smart City Industry on the Korean National Economy: Input-Output Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-19, July.
    16. María Verónica Alderete, 2020. "Exploring the Smart City Indexes and the Role of Macro Factors for Measuring Cities Smartness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(2), pages 567-589, January.
    17. Kfir Noy & Moshe Givoni, 2018. "Is ‘Smart Mobility’ Sustainable? Examining the Views and Beliefs of Transport’s Technological Entrepreneurs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-19, February.
    18. Joost van Hoof & Jeroen Dikken & Willeke H. van Staalduinen & Suzan van der Pas & Rudy F. M. van den Hoven & Loes M. T. Hulsebosch-Janssen, 2022. "Towards a Better Understanding of the Sense of Safety and Security of Community-Dwelling Older Adults. The Case of the Age-Friendly City of The Hague," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-20, March.
    19. Sabiölla Hosseini & Leonhard Frank & Gilbert Fridgen & Sebastian Heger, 2018. "Do Not Forget About Smart Towns," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 60(3), pages 243-257, June.
    20. Ruben Sánchez-Corcuera & Adrián Nuñez-Marcos & Jesus Sesma-Solance & Aritz Bilbao-Jayo & Rubén Mulero & Unai Zulaika & Gorka Azkune & Aitor Almeida, 2019. "Smart cities survey: Technologies, application domains and challenges for the cities of the future," International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, , vol. 15(6), pages 15501477198, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:14:p:5202-:d:386526. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.