Smart City: Intelligent Territories and Future Infrastructures

In a society oriented towards the production of services, the use of Information and Communication Technologies is no longer considered an optional, but becomes an indispensable condition for the development and competitiveness of territories. In this chapter Paolo Fusero argues that the Government should take a proactive role in defining development strategies of digital networks. This is not to replace private companies in providing connectivity, but to promote development on the territories of adequate telecommunications networks (and the services that they may be provided) through the coordination of specific co-financing projects that see the mixed public-private participation in the background of a set of priorities built into reason policies of territorial balance. The resulting strategic framework consists of a set of "intelligent territories" formed from networks, where each pole is the point of intersection and switching of multiple networks: roads, railways, airports, telecommunication systems and digital networks.