The Capability Approach and the Tools of Economic Policies for Smart City

The capability approach developed by the Nobel Prize Amartya Sen have influenced the theoretical approaches of the studies of well-being and quality of life in a multidimensional key focusing on people's freedom. As Sen points out that approach measures the individual advantage in the reason of the capability that the person has to do those things which assign a value. In fact, the advantage of an individual in terms of opportunities is considered lower than that of another one if that individual has lower capacities – i.e. lower effective opportunities - to realize what he attributes a value. The focus is than on the effective freedom of people to do or to be what he believes is worthwhile to do or to be (Sen A., 1999). Therefore, Sen proposes an idea of well-being as “what the individual can do or can be” (set of being and doing), in relation to the ability of people to transform the means and the resources available in results, achievements and goals. A proposal that aims to overcome the concept of material well-being, limited to the unique availability of resources. Furthermore, the capability approach allows a rereading of the issue of the quality of life associated with the condition of social segregation in urban areas, namely degradation of the peripheral neighbourhoods of the city. The urban environment, being a factor capable of affecting the ability to act of people, for the presence/absence of social structures in the broadest possible sense, can be evaluated for the opportunities given to individuals to convert their resources into daily life functioning. The capabilities of people can become, therefore, a measure of the quality of urban environment, depending on the wealth of the conversion factors of the resources into the set of capability. The different multidimensional perspective, introduced by the capability approach, can decisively influence the policy choices. The development of the smart cities strategies and, more generally, the “integrated” territorial policies should propose, then, as an expansion of the devices of people capabilities, in urban areas, which could become potentially segregating and narrowing the field of opportunities to convert resources into functionings.