Explore the vast range of titles available.

This case study explores Bristol's goal to create a smart city, anchored by a 30‐year city vision and the vital role digital connectivity and smart city technologies play. It describes Bristol's 2050 One City Plan, where city partners are collaboratively shaping the city through place‐based leadership, community involvement and co‐production, and Bristol City Council's complementary smart city strategy – Connecting Bristol. This digital agenda supports by developing the ‘foundations’ required to become a data‐enabled city with world‐class connectivity and inclusive public services; elements which enable many One City goals. It examines the importance of a challenge‐led, people‐focused approach with responsible innovation practices that ensure digital initiatives align with the One City Plan's equitable goals and values. Implementation strategies, including an ‘innovation ambition’ matrix used to manage a portfolio of smart city initiatives, and challenges are described along with the need for inclusive infrastructure and ethical data practices. The emerging role for local government in shaping a trusted smart city is explored. This study ends by discussing Covid‐19 and economic recovery, in response to which the Council seeks to become a more agile, streamlined organisation, and concludes by highlighting the need to keep people at the heart of ‘smart’ city development.

The purpose of a Smart City is to solve its inherent problems while simultaneously reducing its expenditure and improving its quality of life. Through the 4th Industrial Revolution technology, the advantages of Smart City are estimated to overcome the city's expenses with city platformization. While a city traditionally is the subject of creation and not consumption, a Smart City currently is the key industry in generating more than 60% of its GDP in value creation from a production viewpoint. Moreover, with the expansion of online-offline convergence, cities can grow without limitation on its size, where connectivity and innovation determine the inclination of the city's benefit-cost curve. As a city platform is responsible for connectivity, its value drastically increases through the 4th Industrial Revolution's O2O (online to offline convergence) platform. When a city reflects on its own as a Digital Twin in the Cloud and when complete information becomes accessible through citizen's participation through smartphones (Edge), Self-organization takes place, an ideal linkage between the city and citizens. Cities go through the self-organizing process of complex adaptive systems like the human brain. This research proposes a future model of a \"Self-organizing City\" and suggests implementing the Smart City model based on the Smart City Tech-Socio Model in implementing strategies.

This study aims to present the processes and mechanisms of creating smart city ecosystems by examining the complex strategic choices and interactions among stakeholders operating at different levels of governance and engagement. Based on the literature review and in-depth analyses of a case study (Lublin, Eastern Poland), we demonstrate that the implementation of tailored strategic thinking using adaptation to global trends, exploitation of development potentials and niches, and stakeholders’ involvement allows for coordination and mobilization of development processes leading to the creation of effective smart city ecosystems. In line with the defined smart city challenges, with the application of a three-stage research program, we create an implementable Smart City Ecosystem Model (SCEM). The contributions of the study are as follows: (1) it provides new insights into smart governance, leadership in creating a sustainable and human smart city; (2) it analyzes strategic choices in the creation of a stakeholder ecosystem and competitive business ecosystems based on smart specializations, providing new opportunities for the design and implementation of smart city strategies. Therefore, this study provides a new multidimensional policy framework for smart cities at both strategic and operational levels that can improve the holistic management of smart and sustainable cities and communities.

Smart City (SC) strategies developed by local governments reflect how governments and planners envision SC and apply smart technologies, and what challenges they face and try to address. Little attention, however, has been given to investigating SC strategies or applications, especially in the U.S. context. Moreover, there is insufficient attention paid to whether SC strategies address social issues such as equity and public participatory opportunities. Based on the documentation from the U.S. Department of Transportation 2015 Smart City Challenge, we developed a framework to evaluate SC strategies on urban transportation systems using six standards: Safety, Mobility, Sustainability, Opportunity, Efficiency, and Equity. In addition, we synthesized the challenges U.S. smart cities encounter, and SC strategies proposed by local municipal governments to tackle them. Our findings show that most SC strategies aimed to improve Efficiency (78%) and Mobility (57%), while less attention has been given to providing Equity (8%) or Opportunity (7%). The most well-acknowledged challenge that the local governments face is the limited data and tools for decision-making, with 416 SC strategies (27%) proposed to address related issues. Our framework and results contribute to the future SC strategy evaluation and inclusive smart city development. Our study also identified a broad spectrum of available SC strategies planners and policymakers can refer to when designing an SC or overcoming SC challenges.

The concept of Smart City has now become the primary choice and trends in improving the quality of public services and is expected to be a solution to problems that occur in urban areas that are increasingly complex by offering an integrated ICT-based city governance concept. However, there are significant differences between the concepts of City and Regency in terms of government structure, area, livelihood variations, population, economy, and socio-culture. So that the idea of Smart City is not always probable and valid if applied to the District. This study aims to create a Smart Regency Framework Model that is different from the Smart City Framework Model, which has been widespread. The method used in this research is Meta-Ethnography to synthesize qualitative findings of regency building factors and TOGAF ADM 9.1 to develop an information system architecture model. The results are expected to produce a new Information Systems Architecture Model and contribute to the development of smart district service models.

The development of sustainable smart cities (SSCs) is pivotal for contemporary urban expansion, as highlighted by numerous international frameworks and scholarly studies. This study focused on Saudi Arabia to identify and assess the key challenges impeding the evolution of intelligent and sustainable urban environments. By categorizing and hierarchically analyzing these impediments, the research isolates the most significant barriers to SSC advancement. A total of 18 obstacles were identified, organized into four categories, and reviewed using existing scholarly literature. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders engaged in executing SSC initiatives, enriching the research from a practical perspective. Additionally, a survey ranked these barriers, revealing that social and economic factors pose the most significant challenges, followed by governance and legal, technology, and environment. The findings of this study offer critical insights for policymakers and governments to mitigate the barriers to SSC development efforts.

The aim of the paper is to identify, analyze and evaluate the barriers that public administration representatives have to face during the preparation and implementation of the Smart City strategy in the Czech Republic as one of the principles of modern sustainable urban development. The goal will be achieved through theoretical assumptions, analysis of sustainable and smart urban environment and especially through qualitative research, specifically by structured interviews with stakeholders who are responsible for the Smart City strategy implementations. The interviews will take place in three Czech cities, namely Prague – the capital, Brno – the winner of the ITAPA 2018 AWARD in category V4 region, and Zlín – an example of the city “on the way” that has no Smart City Strategy implemented at the moment but is running many smart projects within the city ecosystem. Barriers will be classified and divided into two categories – external and internal. Based on examples of good practices from abroad, measures will be proposed that should prevent the emergence of these obstacles right at the very beginning or, at least, mitigate them at their origin. The main identified problems were shortage of experts in the Smart City area, political unrest, poor interconnection with existing legislation and excessive bureaucracy. The proposed measures then focus mainly on the exchange of the best practices among municipalities, the legislative changes and a greater public awareness

In a very real manner, smart cities are platforms for helping citizens improve and elevate the quality of their lives. That sounds simple enough, although the path to becoming smarter is deceptively complex, requiring the skilled coordination of the activities of multiple stakeholders and the ability to juggle the simultaneous creation, testing, and scaling up of solutions that span an entire smart‐city ecosystem. This chapter reviews the evolution of smart‐city strategy and outlines the progressive stages of smart‐city development. First‐generation smart‐city strategies are largely the result of partnerships between the city and major technology companies. The role of technology in a second‐generation strategy may not even go beyond facilitating connections among the different people working on a project. Third‐generation strategies re‐envision the smart‐city model, placing the citizen at the center and recognizing the importance of the individual in the development and implementation of smart‐city solutions tailored to the needs and priorities of the community itself.

For a smart city, soft or non-physical assets share an important capital component with many impacts in different contexts. They enable a city to deliver and mainstream a people-centered policy in addition to the benefits provided by traditional, hard infrastructure. Soft assets can involve social and human capital, knowledge, participation, and innovative approaches that drive value in the city. However, it is always a challenge for city policy makers to identify and strengthen these soft assets using a systemic approach due to their inherent characteristics. This paper argues that soft assets should be strategically integrated into the development process of smart and resilient cities. Therefore, exploring various approaches to prioritize soft asset consideration would provide helpful guidelines to city policy makers for municipal value creation, and identify where the greatest needs for soft or intangible assets lie. This paper examines how to identify and decide which soft assets should take priority in smart and resilient cities. The findings can assist policy makers in their consideration of an optimal mix and balance of soft assets required in the city to improve living structures for a people-centered approach.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to rethink the focus of the smart cities debate and to open it to policymaking and strategy considerations. To this end, the origins of what is termed normative bias in smart cities research are identified and a case made for a holistic, scalable and human-centred smart cities research agenda. Applicable across the micro, mezzo and macro levels of the context in which smart cities develop, this research agenda remains sensitive to the limitations and enablers inherent in these contexts. Policymaking and strategy consideration are incorporated in the agenda this paper advances, thus creating the prospect of bridging the normative and the empirical in smart cities research.Design/methodology/approachThis paper queries the smart cities debate and, by reference to megacities research, argues that the smart city remains an overly normatively laden concept frequently discussed in separation from the broader socio-political and economic contexts in which it is embedded. By focusing on what is termed the normative bias of smart cities research, this paper introduces the nested clusters model. By advocating the inclusion of policymaking and strategy considerations in the smart cities debate, a case is made for a holistic, scalable and human-centred smart cities agenda focused, on the one hand, on individuals and citizens inhabiting smart cities and, on the other hand, on interdependencies that unfold between a given smart city and the context in which it is embedded.FindingsThis paper delineates the research focus and scope of the megacities and smart cities debates respectively. It locates the origins of normative bias inherent in smart cities research and, by making a case for holistic, scalable and human-centred smart cities research, suggests ways of bypassing that bias. It is argued that smart cities research has the potential of contributing to research on megacities (smart megacities and clusters), cities (smart cities) and villages (smart villages). The notions of policymaking and strategy, and ultimately of governance, are brought into the spotlight. Against this backdrop, it is argued that smart cities research needs to be based on real tangible experiences of individuals inhabiting rural and urban space and that it also needs to mirror and feed into policy-design and policymaking processes.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper stresses the need to explore the question of how the specific contexts in which cities/urban areas are located influence those cities/urban areas’ growth and development strategies. It also postulates new avenues of inter and multidisciplinary research geared toward building bridges between the normative and the empirical in the smart cities debate. More research is needed to advance these imperatives at the micro, mezzo and macro levels.Practical implicationsBy highlighting the connection, relatively under-represented in the literature, between the normative and the empirical in smart cities research, this paper encourages a more structured debate between academia and policymakers focused on the sustainable development of cities/urban areas. In doing so, it also advocates policies and strategies conducive to strengthening individuals’/citizens’ ability to benefit from and contribute to smart cities development, thereby making them sustainable.Social implicationsThis paper makes a case for pragmatic and demand-driven smart cities research, i.e. based on the frequently very basic needs of individuals and citizens inhabiting not only urban but also rural areas. It highlights the role of basic infrastructure as the key enabler/inhibitor of information and communication technology-enhanced services. The nested clusters model introduced in this paper suggests that an intimate connection exists between individuals’ well-being, their active civic engagement and smart cities sustainability.Originality/valueThis paper delineates the relationship between megacities and smart cities research. It identifies the sources of what is termed normative bias in smart cities research. To address the implications of that bias, a nested clusters model for smart cities is introduced, i.e. a conceptual framework that allows us to redraw the debate on smart cities and establish a functional connection between the array of normatively laden ideas of what a smart city could be and what is feasible, and under which conditions at the policymaking level.