Emerging Trends and Knowledge Structures of Smart Urban Governance

Abstract

The concept of smart cities peaked in 2015, bringing an increased influx of ‘smart’ devices in the form of the Internet of Things (IoT) and sensors in cities. As a result, interest in smart urban governance has become more prevalent in administrative, organisational, and political circles. This is sustained by both local and global demands for an increased contribution to the goals of sustainability through urban governance processes in response to climate change urgencies. Cities generate up to 70% of global emissions, and in light of societal pressures for more inclusivity and democratic processes, the need for sound urban governance is merited. Further knowledge on the theme of smart urban governance is required to better understand the trends and knowledge structures and better assist policy design. Therefore, this study was undertaken to understand and map the evolution of the concept of smart urban governance through a bibliometric analysis and science mapping techniques using VOSviewer. In total, 1897 articles were retrieved from the Web of Science database over 5 decades, from 1968 to 2021, and divided into three subperiods, namely 1978 to 2015, 2016 to 2019, and 2020 to early 2022. Results indicate that the overall emerging themes across the three periods highlight the need for citizen participation in urban policies, especially in relation to smart cities, and for sustained innovation for e-participation, e-governance, and policy frameworks. The results of this study can aid both researchers exploring the concept of urban governance and policy makers rendering more inclusive urban policies, especially those hosting technological and digital domains.

Environmental Sustainability within Attaining Sustainable Development Goals: The Role of Digitalization and the Transport Sector

“…The snowball development and penetration of digital technologies among all sectors boost green innovations, which are conducive to the decline of CO 2 emissions [32]. It should be noted that scholars [33][34][35][36][37][38] analyze the digitalization effect from different points of view: (1) estimate the impact of digital inclusion on CO 2 emissions [33,34]; (2) estimate the impact of the share of the ICT sector in GDP on CO 2 emissions [35,36]; and (3) estimate the impact of e-commerce and e-governance penetration on CO 2 emissions [37,38].…”

Understanding Digital Governance in Smart Cities: In-Depth Study Utilizing VOSviewer and CiteSpace

“…Smart technology implementation in urban contexts requires critical study and active citizen participation to ensure inclusiveness, stakeholder needs, and environmental sustainability. By involving citizens in planning and design processes, smart technology can empower citizens to play a role in designing their cities' future, addressing paradoxes and socio-political impacts [20].…”

“…Within this cluster, the article by Allam, Z. (2022) acts as the essential reference, and the highly cited members give an in-depth comprehension of these themes [20].…”

Analysis of Readiness for Implementation of the Smart City Masterplan in Wonogiri Regency

“…A smart city is a city concept that utilizes information technology to integrate all infrastructure and services from the government to citizens [10]. The application of the smart city concept in urban planning is to realize sustainable development by improving community services by integrating several existing elements in urban areas such as government [11], economy, quality of life [12], environment [13], human resources [14], and transportation [15].Smart city develops rapidly in line with technology and innovation. The smart city revolution started with Smart City 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 [16].…”