Backcasting as a scholarly and planning approach is increasingly used in futures studies in fields related to urban sustainability as an alternative to traditional planning approaches and a formal element of future strategic initiatives. It is viewed as a natural step in operationalizing sustainable development within different societal spheres. As a holistic urban development strategy, smart sustainable cities represent a manifestation of sustainable development as a process of change and a strategic approach to achieving the long-term goals of sustainability. Achieving smart sustainable cities represents an instance of urban sustainability, a concept that refers to a desired state in which a city strives to retain the balance of socio-ecological system through sustainable development as a desired trajectory. This long-term goal requires fostering linkages between scientific and social research, technological innovations, institutional practices, and policy design and planning in relevance to urban sustainability. It also requires a long-term vision, a transdisciplinary approach, and a system-oriented perspective on addressing environmental, economic, and social issues. These requirements are at the core of backcasting as an approach to futures studies. Backcasting is a special kind of scenario methodology to develop future models for smart sustainable city as a planning tool for urban sustainability. Goal-oriented backcasting approaches declare long-range targets that lie quite far in the future. Visionary images of a long-term future can stimulate an accelerated movement towards achieving the goals of urban sustainability. The backcasting approach is found to be well-suited for long-term urban sustainability solutions due to its normative, goal-oriented, and problem-solving character. Also, it is particularly useful when dealing with complex problems and transitions, the current trends are part of the problem, and different directions of development can be allowed given the wide scope and long time horizon considered. A number of recent futures studies using backcasting have underlined the efficacy of this scholarly and planning approach in terms of indicating policy pathway for sustainability transitions and thus supporting policymakers and facilitating and guiding their actions. However, as there are a number of backcasting approaches used in different domains, and the backcasting framework is adaptive and contextual in nature, it is deemed highly relevant and useful to devise a scholarly and planning approach to strategic smart sustainable city development. This paper has a fourfold purpose. It aims (1) to provide a comparative account of the most commonly applied approaches in futures studies dealing with technology and sustainability (forecasting and backcasting); (2) to review the existing backcasting methodologies and discuss the relevance of their use in terms of their steps and guiding questions in analyzing strategic smart sustainable city development as an area that is at the intersection of city development, sustainable development, and technology development; (3) to synthesize a backcasting approach based on the outcome of the review and discussion; and (4) to examine backcasting as a scholarly methodology and planning approach by looking at its use in the Gothenburg 2050 Project, as well as to use this case to illustrate the core of the synthesized approach. The synthesized scholarly and planning approach serves to help researchers and scholars in analyzing strategic smart sustainable city development to assist planners, policymakers, and decision-makers in their endeavor to implement smart sustainable cities.

中文翻译：

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期货研究中的后退：战略智慧可持续城市发展的综合性学术和规划方法

在学术研究和规划方法中，将后推法越来越多地用于与城市可持续性相关的未来研究中，以替代传统规划方法和未来战略计划的正式内容。它被视为在不同社会领域实施可持续发展的自然步骤。作为整体的城市发展战略，智慧的可持续城市代表着可持续发展的体现，它是变革的过程，也是实现可持续性长期目标的战略方法。实现智慧的可持续城市代表了城市可持续性的一个实例，这个概念指的是城市通过可持续发展努力保持社会生态系统平衡的理想状态作为理想轨迹。这个长期目标要求在科学研究和社会研究，技术创新，体制实践以及与城市可持续性相关的政策设计和规划之间建立联系。在解决环境，经济和社会问题时，还需要有长远的眼光，跨学科的方法和面向系统的观点。这些要求是作为未来研究方法的重铸的核心。回播是一种特殊的场景方法，可用于开发智能可持续城市的未来模型，作为城市可持续性的规划工具。面向目标的反向广播方法声明了将来很长一段时间内的远程目标。长期的远见卓识可以激发人们加快实现城市可持续发展目标的步伐。由于它具有规范性，面向目标和解决问题的特点，因此，后推方法非常适合长期城市可持续性解决方案。同样，当处理复杂的问题和过渡时，它特别有用，当前趋势是问题的一部分，考虑到广泛的范围和较长的时间范围，可以允许不同的发展方向。最近的一些使用反向预测的未来研究强调了这种学术和计划方法的有效性，它指出了可持续性转型的政策途径，从而为政策制定者提供了支持并促进和指导了他们的行动。但是，由于在不同的领域中使用了许多反向广播方法，并且该反向广播框架本质上是自适应的和上下文相关的，为战略性智能可持续城市发展设计一种学术和规划方法被认为是高度相关和有用的。本文具有四个目的。它的目的是（1）对有关技术和可持续性（预测和回溯）的期货研究中最常用的方法进行比较说明；（2）审查现有的反向方法，并就其在分析战略性智慧可持续城市发展（作为处于城市发展，可持续发展和技术发展的交汇点的区域）进行分析的步骤和指导性问题方面讨论其使用的相关性; （3）根据审查和讨论的结果，综合一种后推方法；（4）通过研究哥德堡2050年项目中的反向传播，将其作为一种学术方法论和计划方法进行研究，并以此案例说明合成方法的核心。综合的学术和规划方法可帮助研究人员和学者分析战略性可持续智慧城市发展，以协助规划人员，政策制定者和决策者努力实施智慧可持续城市。