"The Legacy of European Capitals of Culture to the ´Smarteness` of Cities: the case of Guimarães 2012"

The objective of the paper is to examine the extent to which the legacy of European Capitals of Culture (ECOC) increases the “smartness” of cities. To achieve this goal, we adopted a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews to a panel of experts (academics, politicians) to collect well-informed opinions on the long-term impacts of the mega-event on the city of Guimarães. Throughout the analysis of data, we assess whether the legacy of the 2012 Guimarães ECOC matched the dimensions proposed by Giffinger et al. (2007) to rank smart cities’ performance; specifically, if it has smart (i) economy, (ii) people, (iii) governance, (iv) mobility, (v) environment, and (vi) living. The research showed that the legacy comprises elements of almost all the above-mentioned dimensions. Further, the analysis has revealed that this kind of mega-event reinforces the smartness of the city in which it is hosted in terms of attributes such as living, economy, people and environment. No significant legacy is observed with respect to the mobility dimension.

Keywords: Smart Cities, ECOC, Legacy, Urban Development.

Susana Bernardino

Politécnico do Porto, Portugal

J. Freitas Santos

Politécnico do Porto/ Universidade do Minho, Portugal

J. Cadima Ribeiro

Universidade do Minho, Portugal

(resumo de comunicação apresentada no 24º Congresso da APDR (24th APDR Congress), genericamente subordinado ao tema ‘Intelectual Capital and Regional Development – new landscapes and challenges for planning the space’, organizado pela Associação Portuguesa para o Desenvolvimento Regional, que decorreu na Universidade da Beira Interior, Covilhã, a 6 e 7 de julho de 2017)