New issue of the Smart Cities magazine is available online

At the end of November 2014, a new issue of the magazine Smart Cities was published. The quarterly publication is regularly distributed free of charge to representatives of cities and municipalities in the Czech and Slovak Republics with over 5000 inhabitants, and it is available online to the general public at www.scmagazine.cz. Its primary goal is to introduce innovative concepts of urban and community development to politicians and officials while analyzing various issues of their agendas from several levels – urbanism, spatial planning, transportation, technology, impact on citizens, and the environment. In several regular sections focused on "smart" thinking about cities and municipalities, good examples from the domestic scene and abroad are presented. Many cities and municipalities can thus draw inspiration from the development of various strategies of other European cities and implement effective and often low-cost tools for the active lives of their citizens. The ultimate goal of the magazine is to share good domestic solutions among Czech and Slovak cities, especially from the perspective of public administration.
     The fourth issue of this year is focused on the topic of urbanism and sustainable mobility plans, with contributions from architects, urban planners, transport engineers, sociologists, cultural theorists, and others. Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP) are a European financially supported tool, without which it will be difficult to obtain European grants in the future. They represent comprehensive transport planning aimed at changing the current detrimental trend of cities, which is becoming life-threatening, whether through harmful emissions from vehicles or our continuously decreasing physical activity. Essentially, it is about a well-developed decision to mainly live in the city, not just to travel. In some countries (e.g., France or Poland), sustainable urban mobility plans are mandatory or will be soon. In our country, this issue is just beginning to be discussed, and only Opava and Ostrava are preparing plans.
     The nature of public space is also closely related to sustainable transportation solutions. Changing the composition of our cities, determined by transport structures, to an environment in which we will actively live is a long-term and challenging task. It requires urban planners, with the necessary political support, to finally start planning for the residents of cities and municipalities, not for cars!