Toward a Resource-Based View of City Quality: A New Framework JO ~ AO M. S. CARVALHO , RICARDO V. COSTA , SANDRA MARNOTO, C  ELIO A. A. SOUSA, AND JOS  E CARVALHO VIEIRA ABSTRACT Based on an extensive literature review on intelligent cities, smart cities, and happy cities, and on their conceptual connections with citizens’ well-being, quality of life, and happiness, we developed a resource-based view on City Quality: the PESNAT (political, economic, social, natural, artificial, and technological) framework. The concept of City Quality rests on the idea of cities interconnected sub-habitats—PESNAT—which are powerful analytical categories needed for understanding cities as complex and intricate loci. This framework eventually aims at assessing the cities’ power to attract businesses and people, to contribute to a sustainable development of the city and an increased quality of life. Furthermore, two hypotheses are outlined regarding the level of importance of each sub-habitat in relation to happi- ness, and the level of controversy of each one for citizens, city planners, and decision makers. Introduction S ince 2007, the share of total population living in cities has exceeded 50 percent (Kourtit, Nij- kamp, and Arribas 2012). Thus, the city has become the main habitat—the place in which a person, group, class, etc., is normally found (habitat, n.d.)—for human beings. However, there are many problems concerning the way people live in modern cities. Montgomery (2013) pinpoints a few relevant ones: city dispersion (expensive, intensive use of resources and land, pollution); decline in social capital; long commuting distances causing less happiness; car accidents; fire deaths; dense cities being socially toxic (crowding, sleeplessness, depression, irritability, nervousness); velocity of the city activities; city design around easy parking; frequent transportation services do not erase the anxiety of waiting; and poor and rich separated zones. Nevertheless, many cities have been evolving to what can be considered a friendlier environment, with more room for people and transportation. However, this trend, despite its different characteristics, rhythms, rationales, and constraints, ended up creating less happy cities for people in general (e.g., Bartolini, Bilancini, and Pugno 2007; Evans 2004; Stutzer and Frey 2008). Unlike what happens with other hot topics, this upsurge in academic attention for smart cities is attuned with European the political agenda. Most of the issues addressed in the smart cities literature are taken up by the European Commission (2013) on its guiding document for the use of EU funding instruments for the period 2014–2020 about smart cities. In this document, the European Commis- sion stresses the importance of Jo~ ao M. S. Carvalho is a researcher at CICS.NOVA.UMinho and at UNICES-ISMAI, Castelo da Maia, Portugal. His e-mail address is: jcarvalho@ismai.pt. Ricardo V. Costa is a researcher at NECE.UBI and at UNICES-ISMAI, Castelo da Maia, Portugal. His e-mail address is: rcosta@ismai.pt. Sandra Marnoto is a researcher at INESC.TEC.UP and at UNICES-ISMAI, Castelo da Maia, Portugal. His e-mail address is: smarnoto@ismai.pt. C elio A. A. Sousa is a researcher at NECE.UBI and at UNICES-ISMAI, Castelo da Maia, Portugal. His e-mail address is: celiosousa@ismai.pt. Jos e Carvalho Vieira is a researcher at UNICES-ISMAI Castelo da Maia, Portugal. His e-mail address is: jvieira@ismai.pt. Submitted August 2017; revised November 2017; accepted November 2017. V C 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc Growth and Change DOI: 10.1111/grow.12237 Vol. 49 No. 2 (June 2018), pp. 266–285