Does innovation support a better quality life?

Is it useful innovation in telecommunication, i.e. telematics, for the well-being? This is the topic of the proposed paper. But the question is: what is the well-being? This concept covers many different issues regarding physical aspects, behaviour attitude and social life: energy efficiency and save of many natural resource (first of all water); building/building compound management (e.g. related to ordinary garbage) and mobility (in local and wider area); participation life and appurtenances in local Community life. Innovation by itself is not good or bad, it depends by the use of it. Innovation is inevitable when there are the technological, administrative and cultural conditions for its diffusion. But it is not “neutral” for either the proposed social models and the spatial ones. The key issue consists in the political options driving the innovation diffusion. How to connect flows of energy with flows of information to save energy? How to substitute physical exchange by immaterial ones? How to form and to educate people, communities, residents to a smart implementation of innovation (Zeleny, 1985; Del Nord, 1991)? More information means more stimulation of mobility, as in the beginning of the Information Age (ca. 1984) some searchers already wrote (Nilles, 1988 quoted in Aragona 1993, 2000 ): how to drive telematics for a more sustainable environment? This implies a different morphology and building design, a different and new planning theory and construction criteria. Bibliography references - Aragona S. (1993) La città virtuale. Trasformazioni urbane e nuove tecnologie della informazione (The Virtual City. Urban transformations and new information technologies), Gangemi Editore, Roma - Reggio Calabria - Aragona S. (2000) Ambiente urbano e innovazione. La città globale tra identità locale e sostenibilità (Urban Environment and Innovation. The global town between local identity and sustainability) , Gangemi Editore, Roma - Reggio Calabria - Del Nord, R., (1991) Presentazione (Presentation), in (a cura di, eds) Mucci, E., Rizzoli, P., "L'immaginario tecnologico metropolitano" (Metropolitan technological imaginary), F. Angeli, Milano - Nilles, J.M. (1988) Traffic Reduction By Telecommuting: a Status Review, Transportation Research, vol. 22a, 4 - Nilles, J.M. (1988) Managing Teleworking, Center for Effective Organization Southern California University, L.A. - Zeleny, M. (1985) La Gestione a Tecnologia Superiore e la Gestione della Tecnologia Superiore (The superior technology management and the management of the superior technology , in (a cura di, eds) Bocchi, G., Ceruti, M., “La sfida della complessita'" (The challenge of the complexity)