12.2.Strategies for achieving sustainability in cities

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a blueprint for achieving the desired sustainability through establishment of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests57 .

The multitude of the definitions and goals of the sustainability concept suggest that the idea of the sustainability is still open for exploration and that it is still a subject of improvement through practical, real-life implementations that provide a valuable knowledge and experience for enhanced view of the smart cities. In the context of the urban development it is also providing a wide opportunity for local and context sensitive interpretations that should respond better to the specifics of the diversity of the urban aspects that comprise the complexity of contemporary cities and integrating them into a sustainable organic and functional whole.

The importance of the integration of city’s various systems, transport, energy, education, health care, built environment, physical infrastructure, food, water, public safety and others in creation of Smart Cities has been emphasized through acknowledgement that these systems does not operate within the frame of the cities as a separate entity but rather as mutually interdependent complex network of interrelations and influences creating the overarching multitude of the urban reality. This fact that infusing technology or intelligence into each of the subsystems of the city in a separate manner does not improve the efficiency and functionality of the system nor does it provide enhanced potential within the urban complexity. However, the inherent complexity of the urban systems and subsystems especially when observed as a whole does not permit a comprehensive understanding of the specifics of the systems in the scope of the Sustainability concept application. With the intention of the better understanding what constitutes the sustainability many authors have proposed several dimensions and characteristics of the concept providing an integrated framework for observation of the Sustainability concept through development of sustainable strategies.

Development sustainable strategies are focused on several principles or dimensions of sustainable development. The Sustainable development strategies’ focus is on five dimensions: economic sustainability, social sustainability, ecological sustainability, sustainable spatial development, and cultural continuity. The main dimensions of the sustainability and accordingly the sustainable urban development can be defined through following actions: Economic stability which can be defined as outcome of better allocation and efficient management of resources and continuous flow of private and governmental investment; Social sustainability which means: creating development process, that its