Scenario planning for Mashhad’s smart city: an ICT-driven future

Uncertainties and discontinuous probable events of the age of communication technology have penetrated into various aspects of human life and are seeking a new face for the spatial organization of future smart cities. This article systematically explores the possible futures, leading the spatial organization of a smart city in the information and communication technology (ICT) era, and presents alternative scenarios that are possible with the case study’s conditions. The possible status of key components is explained using scenario planning techniques, employing environmental scanning and expert interviews, and analyzing and synthesizing key components by assessing the influences between pairs of components on a scale from −3 to 3 in a Cross-Impact Balances matrix in the ScenarioWizard software. The outlook for the spatial organization of the Mashhad’s Smart City under study was examined in three desirable, static, and crisis scenarios with very high compatibility and credibility from among 48 possible situations. Finally, the priorities for dealing with each scenario are presented.