Smart cities: an effective urban development and management model?

Abstract

It is argued that the smart cities model promise solutions to fuel sustainable development and a high quality of life with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory action and engagement. The paper provides a critical review of this model and application attempts of smart urban technologies in contemporary cities by particularly looking into emerging practices of ubiquitous eco-cities as exemplar smart cities initiatives. Through a thorough review of literature and best practices on the smart cities model, this paper attempts to address the research question of whether smart cities model is just another fashionable city brand or an effective urban development and management model to solve the problems of our cities. The findings shed light on urban planning and development considerations for the integration of smart urban technologies and their possible implications in shaping up of the built environment to produce prosperous and sustainable urban futures.

Barriers to the Development of Smart Cities in Indian Context

“…In addition, the literature also lacks a clear understanding of strategic planning for smart city projects (Angelidou 2015). There is a clear literature gap pertaining to the smart city agenda, including its theoretical development and evaluation of related challenges that facilitate implementation in a country context (Yigitcanlar 2015). Therefore, key barriers to the smart cities' development need to be identified and evaluated.…”

Open Innovation of James Watt and Steve Jobs: Insights for Sustainability of Economic Growth

“…In the first decade of the 21st century, the number of people connected to the Internet worldwide increased from 350 million to more than 2 billion; within the same period, the number of mobile phone subscribers rose from 750 million to well over a billion [26]. This has significant consequences not only for the industry and business (in other words economic) activities, but also for our cities and societies as the Fourth Industrial Revolution is leading to the formation of the Smart but also Sustainable Cities and Communities of the 21st Century [28][29][30][31][32][33][34].…”

Planning, Development and Management of Sustainable Cities: A Commentary from the Guest Editors

“…Furthermore, the rapid advancements in the domain of urban technologies are also seen as a significant contributor to the efforts in dealing with unsustainable outcomes produced from our cities [92]. This technology perspective eventually led to the development of a new city brand-so-called "smart cities" that symbolises a new kind of technology-led sustainable urban utopia [93,94].…”