An approach that organizes the territory, enhances public spaces, and places people at the center of urban intelligence.
*Per Iago Prado and Jamile Sabatini Marques
The debate about smart cities remains heavily oriented towards technology, platforms, and systems. However, urban intelligence transcends this technical vision. It is expressed, above all, in how the territory is organized and how the city responds to people's daily lives. A smart city includes people, brings public services closer, and operates based on data. It is in this context that the concept of [missing word - likely "smart city"] is situated. We Greens as a structuring layer of the smart city, integrating infrastructure, accessibility, mobility and citizenship.
Green Nodes are urban hubs distributed throughout the territory, located in squares, underutilized public areas, urban voids, or revitalized transit spaces. Just as in a plant system, where nodes strengthen the network and structure growth, these hubs concentrate elements and services to strengthen the local urban fabric. The objective is straightforward: to decentralize the provision of services, reduce travel distances, and bring the city closer to the neighborhoods.
Each Green Node functions as an urban support hub, bringing together various urban facilities and equipment, for example: Wi-Fi, Rest areas, monitoring stations, drinking fountains, bicycle parking, flexible spaces for collective use, etc. The system is scalable; each node has a basic configuration, and depending on demand, it can expand and add more public facilities. The insertion of these facilities occurs intelligently and in an orchestrated manner, ensuring harmony in urban planning.
These nodes are connected by inter-nodes — urban corridors that link one point to another. Inter-nodes are axes of high-quality mobility, prioritizing public transport, electric vehicles, shared bicycles, and walkability. With intelligent traffic lights and appropriate road design, travel between nodes becomes faster and more efficient than using a private car, encouraging more sustainable choices.
Beyond the physical dimension, Green Nodes represent a layer of the smart city. The concept of "nodes" transcends the urban node: it incorporates people. It is about including the population in the smart city process, where the citizen becomes an active agent of urban transformation.
This is materialized, for example, in the free reservation of public spaces in these locations. Citizens can reserve a space to carry out group activities. This information is automatically forwarded to the responsible departments, allowing public management to identify real needs and direct policies based on evidence.
Similarly, the user can rate the node and register requests. Quick response and feedback to the citizen generate something crucial to the smart city concept: citizen engagement.
When connected to mobile devices, Green Nodes generate valuable data on usage profiles and access frequency. This information allows us to understand who uses each node, what activities take place there, and the distances traveled to access it, supporting the deployment of new nodes in areas with unmet demand.
In this way, Green Nodes operate simultaneously as urban infrastructure, data tools, and elements for integrating users. By revealing usage patterns, needs, and behaviors, they improve urban planning and increase the efficiency of public investments.
By organizing the territory based on structuring nodes and, at the same time, incorporating citizens as active agents in this layer, the Green Nodes materialize a vision of a smart city built with participation, proximity, and real use of public space, resulting in a smart city that is structured from nodes.
Jamile Sabatini Marques is the Director of Innovation, Promotion and Research at ABES.
*Iago Prado works at the Municipal Secretariat of Public Works in Caxias do Sul, in the Technical Management of Road Systems, and is a member of the Commission for the Implementation, Management and Monitoring of the Master Plan (CIGM), working on the planning, technical analysis and monitoring of road infrastructure and sustainable urban mobility projects. He is a civil engineer, specializing in Sustainable Buildings, and a master's student in the Postgraduate Program in Planning and Management of Sustainable Cities at the University of Caxias do Sul (UCS).
Notice: The opinion expressed in this article is the responsibility of its authors and not of ABES – Brazilian Association of Software Companies
Article originally published on the Portal CSC website: https://portal.connectedsmartcities.com.br/2026/02/09/nos-verdes-a-camada-viva-da-cidade-inteligente/
