Cities as sustainable service platforms: A framework for institutional service delivery in the urban context

Cities are complex systems of infrastructures and entities, which are usually developed independently, focusing on their efficiency. Cities deliver various services, such as health care, education and transportation. These services are delivered through urban entities such as hospitals, schools, universities and care homes, each built and managed independently. As a consequence, even though there might be enough resources in the built environment, there might be a lack of access in terms of actual service delivery. This is due to the trend that many times urban innovation happens by building new instead of using existing resources in more sustainable ways. Recently, new digital technologies and platforms have emerged to enable the sharing of various resources. However, since resource sharing has emerged on the customer side, institutions are still largely controlling their own independent resources. This article analyzes opportunities for institutional resource sharing and the role of service operations and platform applications. The research reveals new opportunities for operating environments and proposes a new service-oriented model for organizing institutional service delivery and using cities as sustainable service platforms.