Developing the PlanIT Valley: a view on the governance and societal embedding of u-eco city pilots

During the last decade, a small number of large-scale city pilots emerged in order to explore and test new urban solutions, namely based on ubiquitous computing and blended with ecological notions (u-eco city pilots). Inspired by recent literatures on urban development and social studies of innovation, we argue that a more encompassing planning framework for such 'new cities' should go beyond framing their technological challenges, embracing societal dimensions which ultimately may affect the technological development of the pilot in itself - governance and societal embedding. We illustrate these ideas with the case of the PlanIT Valley, a private-driven u-eco city pilot under development in the north of Portugal. Despite its still embryonic stage, first evidence suggests that these two dimensions pose relevant challenges to the pilot's development, namely related with resource access, license to operate and the development of a socially-rich innovation ecosystem.