Developing Smart Cities: An Integrated Framework

Abstract

With the advent of "smartphones", technology has helped mankind to solve some of its difficulties. On a similar note, "smart city" is a futuristic approach to alleviate obstacles triggered by ever-increasing population and fast urbanization which is going to benefit the governments as well as the masses. Modern day cities are deprived of vital elements like quality of life and socioeconomic development which can be delivered by the smart cities. Smart cities are an endeavour to make cities more efficient, sustainable and liveable. In other words, a smart city is a city that can monitor and integrate functionality of all the critical infrastructure like roads, tunnels, airways, waterways, railways, communication power supply, etc., control maintenance activities and can help in optimizing the resources while keeping an eye on the security issues as well. This research paper explores various aspects and dimensions of a smart city. To bridge the gap in literature regarding the concept of smart cities and its implementation, a framework has been developed to get better insights about the idea of smart city. On the basis of extensive and deep research of literature from diverse domains, we have identified six significant pillars for developing the framework as: Social, Management, Economic, Legal, Technology and Sustainability (SMELTS). The paper throws light upon how these factors can make the smart city initiative a successful project. The proposed framework has been used to figure out various agendas for research and traces its practical implications.

Smart City Governance in Developing Countries: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Building a strong regulatory environment that fosters the confidence of investors and the trust of citizens is another key driver of smart city development in developing countries [63,69,70,73,77,83]. To realise this, the government needs to take active steps to lay out clear sets of laws, regulations, and policies that guide smart city development [63,83]. These processes need to be transparent so that the government's credibility can be sustained among citizens and investors [73].…”

“…Technology and infrastructure readiness will help lay the physical foundations for all smart city initiatives and are important catalysts for smart city development in developing countries [38,45,48,62,75,[81][82][83]. The availability of high-quality, high-security, and privacy-preserving wireless infrastructure and service-oriented information systems that share public service information with the citizens will improve operational and administrative efficiencies [48,62,72,75,82].…”

“…To accrue the benefits technology could bring to both governments and citizens in smart city development, an advanced IoT system with functional physical infrastructure (such as smart cameras, sensors, and actuators that collect data) [38] and a centralised analytics system capable of processing, analyzing [75], and inferring knowledge from data and transferring this information to the necessary hubs [38] are required. For this integrated network to function effectively, regular maintenance of both the physical and network infrastructure must be conducted [83].…”

“…Economic stability is another key driver of smart city development in developing countries [71,83]. This factor is a particularly important consideration for foreign investors evaluating their financial risks and the likelihood of a smart city project's success [71].…”

“…Based on a quantitative analysis of the drivers of smart cities, a city's GDP growth (for instance) has a direct impact on bringing more financial capital for hardware development, characterised by more investment in transportation infrastructure and telecommunication and attracting human capital inclined towards leading a better quality of life [24]. Smart city development will facilitate the flow of capital, and it is important that economic growth in the smart city remains constant to attract capital investment [83].…”