Beyond Smart: How ICT Is Enabling Sustainable Cities of the Future

Due to high urbanization rate the issues of smart and sustainable city planning become very important currently. The planning and development of the concept “smart city” is based on these issues. Reasonable planning of city environment makes opportunities for city competitiveness increase and reduces negative trends in their development. Modern interpretations and approaches to the “smart city” concept are based on many factors. Among them are the increase of economic potential and budget security, the decline of ecological impact, human resources capitalization based on digital technologies application in society development. The review of literature that has been made allows us to classify “smart cities”, to determine features and to specify aims and tasks for their development. Using a definitional analysis the original comprehension of the “smart city” concept has been suggested. According to this interpretation a “smart city” is considered to be a city which resources are efficiently used by all participants, first of all by city- dwellers providing comfort, safety and eco – friendly environment. The analysis of Russian and foreign experience in the field of the “smart city” concept implementation, the results of a particularized inquiry and interview including those organized with the international professional social network Linkedin allowed us to reveal key challenges in “smart city” development. The most crucial among them are organizational, financial, infrastructural and technological obstacles that prevent the “smart city” concept implementation. We have substantiated that the solutions of the revealed problems in the case study of Russia first of all should concern the digitization of a city utilities sector, power engineering, building and public transport. They are also associated with wide-spread application of integrated digital platforms in management and education, in control over environmental pollution in the frameworks of the “Digital economy in the Russian Federation” program implementation. The prospects to create smart cities in Russia have been determined by means of identification of conditions for the solution of the acute tasks of digitization of regional and city agglomeration economy. We have formulated the trends of relevant studies of “smart cities” in the perspectives of development and implementation priority of the project “smart city” at all levels of public management. Also a methodology to calculate a long-term economic effect that will be caused by the project implementation has been developed. Keywords a “smart city” concept, a smart city, city environment, city economy management, digital economy, information and communication technologies, intelligent systems, infrastructure, ecology, development perspectives

The purpose of this article is to identify the directions and scope of inclusion of the residents’ participation into the concept of city’s sustainable development and the smart city concept, taking into account national and international conditions, on the basis of Wroclaw’s practices in 1998–2018. Many researchers have emphasized the necessity of including residents’ participation in both the smart city concept and the sustainable city development concept, but they do not focus on a coherent linking of these activities during evolution toward a sustainable smart city (SSC). The in-depth case study analysis considered, i.e., three subsequent Wroclaw development strategies (1998–2018) and implementation of the smart city concept in Wroclaw (2015–2018) with particular emphasis on the issue of public participation and sustainable development of the city. The results of study show that in the case of the developments in the activities of smart city and sustainable city development carried out by Wroclaw, it is possible to identify two different approaches to residents’ participation in city activities. In Wroclaw, ‘residents’ participation’ in the framework of the sustainable city development activities currently covers all theoretical levels of participation, while within the smart city activities it focuses mainly on the participatory budget and the limited use of ICT. The conducted research indicates that for the implementation of the SSC concept it would be important to integrate these approaches in order to ensure the full range of residents’ participation in accordance with theoretical postulates. The conducted analysis therefore covers mostly unexplored area of research, which is important from the point of view of a city’s evolution toward becoming a sustainable smart city. The conclusions from the research are also an empirical contribution to the analysis of the changes of cities towards SSC and indicate the need for further, extended research on the undertaken problem.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to navigate the challenges irregular migratory flows generate for cities and urban systems. The migration and refugee crises that challenged Europe in 2015-2016 revealed that the developed world cities and urban areas are largely unprepared to address challenges that irregular migratory flows generate. This paper queries the smart and resilient cities’ debates, respectively, to highlight that migration-related challenges and opportunities have not been explicitly addressed in those deliberations. This creates a disconnect between what these debates promise and what cities/urban systems increasingly need to address on a daily basis. Subsequently, a way of bridging that disconnect is proposed and its policy-making implications discussed.Design/methodology/approachTo suggest ways of navigating irregular migration-inflicted challenges cities/urban areas face, a nexus between the smart cities and resilient cities’ debates is established. By placing advanced sophisticated information and communication technologies (ICTs) at the heart of the analysis, a novel dynamic ICTs’ enabled integrated framework for resilient urban systems is developed. The framework’s dynamics is defined by two hierarchically interconnected levers, i.e. that of ICTs and that of policy-design and policy-making. Drawing from qualitative analysis and process tracing, the cross-section of policy design and policy-making geared towards the most efficient and ethically sensitive use of sophisticated ICTs is queried. Subsequently, options available to cities/urban systems are discussed.FindingsThe ICTs’ enabled integrated framework for resilient urban systems integrates the effectiveness of migrants and refugees’ policy design and policy-making in human-centred thinking, planning and policy-design for resilient urban systems. It places resilient approaches in the spotlight of research and policy-making, naming them the most effective methods for promoting a humanistic smart cities and resilient urban systems vision. It highlights critical junctions that urban systems’ stakeholders must consider if the promise of emerging sophisticated ICTs is to be employed effectively for the entire society, including its most vulnerable members.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, when designing ICTs’ enabled integrated resilient urban systems, the key stakeholders involved in the policy-design and policy-making process, including local, national and regional authorities, must employ a holistic view to the urban systems seen through the lens of hard and soft concerns as well as considerations expressed by the receiving and incoming populations. Second, the third-sector representatives, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other actors, need to be seen as peers in integrated humanistic networks, thereby contributing critical, unbiased knowledge flows to infrastructures, which promote fair and inclusive participation of migrants and refugees in local economies.Practical implicationsThe ICTs’ enabled integrated framework for resilient urban systems promotes a humanistic smart cities’ and resilient urban systems’ vision. It suggests how to design and implement policies apt to meet the needs of both receiving and incoming populations along value chains specific to smart and resilient cities. It promotes emerging sophisticated ICTs as the subtle, yet key, enabler of data ecosystems and customized services capable of responding to critical societal needs of the receiving and the incoming populations. In addition, the framework suggests options, alternatives and strategies for urban systems’ stakeholders, including the authorities, businesses, NGOs, inhabitants and ICTs’ providers and vendors.Originality/valueThe value added of this paper is three-fold. At the conceptual level, by bringing together the smart cities and resilient cities debates, and incorporating sophisticated ICTs in the analysis, it makes a case for their usefulness for cities/urban areas in light of challenges these cities/urban areas confront each day. At the empirical level, this analysis maps the key challenges that cities and their stakeholders face in context of migratory flows and highlights their dual nature. At the policy-making level, this study makes a case for a sound set of policies and actions that boost effective use of ICTs beyond the smart technology hype.

Towards smart sustainable cities: A review of the role digital citizen participation could play in advancing social sustainability

Technology has indispensably been a part of the city evolution throughout history. In recent years, there has been a shift in the pattern of development in smart cities, where smart cities attempt to embrace practices of sustainability using Information and Communication Technologies and other smart solutions. Past studies reveal that these smart cities have failed in successfully incorporating sustainable development goals into their smart strategies, where they tend to focus more on achieving smartness goals rather than sustainability goals and targets. This paper presents a multi‐faceted interrogative study on several ongoing smart city initiatives around the globe that supports United Nations Urban Sustainability Agenda. This paper aims to focus on harmonizing smart and sustainable city initiatives with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals using a systems thinking approach. The study develops conceptual models that support the city transition into being a sustainable smart city. These conceptual models were designed based on the fundamentals of system thinking for a system of several elements under the key catalyzers “Policy and Governance,” “Research & Development,” and “Partnership.” The causalities and interrelationships among elements in developed conceptual models justify the dynamicity and the impact of these elements within a system. The outcome of this research paper would support industry experts, policymakers, and city planners to adopt robust policy interventions and best practices for developing strategies that support the transition of smart cities to the futuristic label of sustainable cities.

Over the past decade, digital technologies, as part of the global smart-city agenda, have begun to form the backbone of our cities and to enhance service quality in urban infrastructure. It is widely argued that this approach will create smart cities that are efficient, technologically advanced, green, and socially inclusive. Along with this technocentric viewpoint, the sustainability ideology has had significant impact on the planning and development of smart cities in recent years—recoining the term as ‘sustainable smart cities’. In other words, this envirocentric viewpoint has led to consolidated efforts in the conceptualisation of the sustainable development of (sustainable) smart cities. The marriage of technocentric and envirocentric views is seen as the only way to constitute the 21st century’s ideal city form. It is also argued that, in this way, current and forthcoming severe global ecological, societal, economic, and governance challenges will be adequately addressed. This book aims to contribute to the conceptual- and practical-knowledge pools in order to improve research and practices on sustainable smart cities by offering an informed understanding of the subject to scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners. The book contains contributions offering insight into sustainable smart cities by providing in-depth conceptual analyses, and detailed case-study descriptions and empirical investigations from across the globe. This book comprises a repository of relevant information, material, and knowledge to support research, policy-making, practices, and experience transferability to address the aforementioned challenges. The scope of the book includes the following areas, with a particular focus on the approaches to, and advances and applications in sustainable smart cities: (a) theoretical underpinnings, and analytical and policy frameworks of sustainable smart cities; (b) methodological approaches for the evaluation of sustainable smart cities; (c) technological developments in the techno–enviro-nexus of sustainable smart cities; (d) emerging sustainability solutions and integrated actions from sustainable smart cities; (e) best-practice sustainable-smart-city case investigations from the Global North and South; (f) geodesign and applications concerning the desired urban outcomes of sustainable smart cities; and (g) prospects, implications, and impact concerning the future of sustainable smart cities.

How can smart city shape a happier life? The mechanism for developing a Happiness Driven Smart City

PurposeThis paper aims to discuss the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the effective assessment of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) related to smart and sustainable city initiatives.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a systematic review of the literature within the Web of Science and Scopus databases, comprising the studies about ICTs related to smart and sustainable city initiatives and sustainable assessment.FindingsThe main results point out that there are several different ways of assessing SDGs performance related to ICTs use in smart and sustainable city initiatives. However, the effectiveness of these assessments can be questioned. The intensive use of technology understood as the core of smart and sustainable cities does not imply an improvement in sustainability unless these technologies are strategically addressed to underpin those objectives. Moreover, not all SDGs have considered the use of ICTs in their targets.Research limitations/implicationsThe scope of the study is limited to “how” the information is used and managed, rather than analysing the sustainable performance itself. As a limitation, the findings and conclusions do not consider other sources of studies, such as grey literature.Practical implicationsThis study suggests some requirements for providing better and more reliable sustainable assessment, making smart and sustainable city initiatives more correlated with the SDGs.Social implicationsBy acknowledging the difficulties associated with SDGs assessment, concerning the municipal level, the study offers valuable insights into the effectiveness of public policies and public management. Besides, the findings shed some light on if and how the use of ICTs can effectively enhance sustainable development issues.Originality/valueThis study offers valuable contributions to the literature by providing a collection of insights regarding how the ICTs may genuinely lead to a sound assessment of sustainable development, especially regarding the SDGs.

PurposeThis study aims to assess the readiness of both citizens and the government for digital participatory planning (DDP) as a contribution to the undergoing transformative shift toward smart and sustainable cities to address the challenges posed by rapid urbanization. While much attention has been devoted to leveraging technology to mitigate these challenges, there has been a relative lack of emphasis on engaging stakeholders in the planning process in a smart and inclusive manner. DPP stands as a cornerstone for the development of sustainable and smart cities. However, before DPP can be effectively implemented on the ground, it is crucial to assess the city readiness for DPP to ensure its success. This assessment is undertaken as part of Oman's broader initiative to transition into sustainable smart cities in alignment with the goals outlined in Oman Vision 2040.Design/methodology/approachA generic evaluation framework was identified, validated and customized to the local context by experts using the pile sorting technique based on the social constructivism theory. Then, the revised framework was used to evaluate the readiness of a sample of local citizens and government officials in Oman for the DPP concept.FindingsThe inferential statistical analysis revealed that citizens are willing to participate in DPP when trust and transparency with policymakers are enhanced. On the government side, the results showed that there is adequate infrastructure that can enable DPP, and planners have a positive attitude toward DPP provided that trust in citizens' opinions is strengthened. This study concludes with a roadmap for preparation for DPP implementation in smart sustainable cities mandated by Oman Vision 2040. The findings and roadmap can inform policy development, decision-making and urban planning practices toward more inclusive, participatory and technologically enabled urban environments.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by emphasizing the significance of stakeholders' smart involvement in planning processes, social sustainability, evaluating city readiness for DPP and providing practical recommendations for DPP implementation in the context of smart sustainable cities. At a theoretical level, the study contributes a framework for assessing readiness for DPP and emphasizes that mutual trust is not only important for conventional participation practices but it is also essential for smart citizens. This study argues that a building or a city is not sustainable unless it is seen as such by its stakeholders, including the end users. Therefore, effective and smart involvement of the citizens in smart city planning is a precondition for the success of the future cities.

The emergence of ‘Smart Cities’ is a contemporary global phenomenon which is closely aligned to a vision of modern technologically advanced sustainable urban environments. However, public policy and academic discourses differ about what constitutes a city that is either ‘smart’ or ‘sustainable’, and assumptions are frequently made about the positive impact of technology and its potential benefit to the environment. Whilst a smart city is not necessarily a sustainable city, the terms ‘smart city’ and the ‘sustainable city’ are increasingly being fused together in the concept of the Sustainable Smart City (SSC). This article seeks to explore the conceptual components of the SSC, with a particular focus on the participatory role of the citizen, where this involves the use of new digital technologies. Conventional eGovernment has tended to focus on service delivery rather than engaging citizens in participatory activity, whilst traditional discourses on sustainability focus on environmentalism rather than broader societal sustainability. Sustainability in the context of the SSC is a much wider concept, where the aspiration is also to improve the quality life by engaging citizens in participatory governance, by co-creating sustainability values, and by developing relationships, trust and sustainable mechanisms for ongoing engagement. In this respect, new digital technology is understood according to its transformational potential and the opportunities which it offers to citizens in delivery of services, meaningful participation and of sustainable societal solutions. This article explores the three underlying conceptual pillars of the SCC, namely insights deriving from perspectives associated with (1) sustainability, (2) new technology and (3) participation, where each of these perspectives offers up its own rationale and institutional logic. Here, it is argued, that whilst practice around SSC’s differs considerably, the ‘real’ SSC stands at the nexus of new technology, citizen engagement and sustainable outcomes.

Abstract. More than half of the total world’s population lives in urban areas, and it is expected that 66% of all them will live in urban areas by 2050. The population growth and continuing urbanization in the world cause many social, economic, technical, and organizational problems related to transportation, businesses, communication networks, services, and utilities that can risk the cities’ economic and environmental sustainability. Recently, a smart city concept has been developed to provide a solution to improve citizens’ quality of life in urban areas with the adoption of smart and digital technologies and infrastructure for energy, water, mobility, buildings, and government. The smart city concept considers “zero vision” that refers to the use of smart city technologies, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Internet of Things (IoT) tools, to minimize negative impacts (i.e., zero traffic accident, zero CO2 emission, zero waste, zero crime) in the cities. However, the research in this zero-vision approach mainly focused on transportation and energy. Urban forestry and urban vegetated areas in the cities inherently provide benefits such as reducing air pollution, urban heat island effects, and flood risk and increasing the water quality, aesthetic value, and value of the property that improve citizens’ quality of life. The smart city concept switched towards to sustainable smart city concept that takes into account the services provided by urban forestry and urban vegetation. In this study, the shifts in the smart city concept towards the sustainable smart city, the role of the urban forestry and urban vegetation in this shift was presented. Also, ICTs and IoT tools specifically designed for monitoring, assessing, and managing urban forestry and urban vegetation was reviewed.

According to United Nations estimates, about 70% of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050. (https://www.un.org) Smart sustainable cities technologies and approaches, including those based on information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and Internet of things (IoT), are already helping people to overcome multiple challenges of urban development and to progress towards achieving global objectives for cities, particularly Sustainable Development Goal 11 ‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’ (The first United Smart Cities SMART CITY LAB opened in Vienna, supporting co-creation of solutions for smart sustainable cities worldwide 2018, [1]). The Smart Cities Mission (SCM), launched in 2015, by the Government of India, aims at building up sustainable and inclusive cities that provide core infrastructure, a clean and sustainable environment and a decent quality of life to its citizens. The strategic components of the Mission are city improvement (retrofitting), city renewal (redevelopment) and city extension (greenfield development) with smart solutions applied in service delivery and governance (SDG India Index & Dashboard 2019–2020, [2]). There are several urbanization models that incorporate digital technologies to address some of the urbanization and sustainability challenges: Digital cities feature the integration of digital technology into the city’s core infrastructure systems; intelligent cities rely on the digital city infrastructure to build intelligent buildings, transportation systems, schools, enterprises, public spaces, public services, etc., and to integrate them into intelligent urban systems; and smart cities—deploy intelligent urban systems at the service of socio-economic development and improving urban quality of life (Estevez et al, Smart sustainable cities, reconnaissance study 2016, [3]) So, here, we are trying to deal with systems of systems in physical ecosystems powered by various ICT and digital technologies. Meanwhile, the existing technological approaches tend to latch onto the most hyped technology of the year and produce many silo-ed solutions for smart cities which, although elevates technology innovation, fails to engage its citizens. Therefore, a design intervention is needed to help bridge this and make technologies work for humans, the citizens and the primary stakeholder. This interpretation paper is an inquisition into the role of design and designers, to bring the right kind of approach when it comes to sustainable smart city design. The paper first lays down the high-level role and responsibilities of designers and its various other key stakeholders in crafting a smart city. Then, it talks about the right kind of methodologies that designers bring at all levels of sustainable smart city design—from working with official bodies in co-creation and collaboration mode to the end-users—the citizens—to understand their wants, needs and desires. The paper then details out a case study of a smart campus where the aforementioned methods are applied in order to come up with the most effective designs for the smart city that meet the official bodies’ KPI requirements and at the same time, delivers best-in-class experiences to citizens.

A smart city is an urban space focused on improving the quality of life of its citizens through the intensive use of technology to support social and economic development, where multiple areas cooperate systematically to achieve sustainable collective results at all levels. In this sense, Internet usage has reached a point where it has become essential in everyday life: the need to have information at hand in the shortest possible time has generated a technological revolution around the constant connection with this tool. Thus, personal life and everyday objects have created the need to continuously monitor and understand what surrounds the human being, hence the birth of the Internet of Things (IoT); and the convergence between the environment, human interaction and technology has given rise to the concept of smart and sustainable cities (SSC). However, given the current state of these concepts, it is necessary to apply for an introductory contextualized conceptual review on Smart and Sustainable Cities, and then characterize them from the establishment of broad categories with their respective subcategories: Smart Mobility (Mobility Integration, Sustainable Public Transport Service, Electric and Autonomous Vehicles); Energy Efficiency (Renewable Energies, Natural Resources Management and measurement of environmental parameters—Emissions, Water Consumption Efficiency); and Smart Health (telehealth and solutions provided by information and communication technologies (ICT); and the use of ICT for generation, transmission, and processing of information (Machine learning, IoT, sensor grids, Cloud Computing, Big Data). Based on the above, this chapter comparatively addresses concepts on the present of SSC in collaboration with IoT: advantages and disadvantages, reception, adaptability, and vulnerability in data. The city-nation of Singapore is assessed through a quantitative evaluation in terms of GMSDIL (Governance, Mobility, Sustainability, Economic Development, Intellectual Capital and Quality of Life) as a successful city, concluding from the qualitative description under this model, an urban resilience that has allowed the improvement of the quality of life of its citizens, even in traumatic circumstances and catastrophic effects such as those of the current pandemic.KeywordsICTInternetIoTSmart and sustainable citiesUrban resilienceSingapore

A rising number of people agree that the actions conducted in India as part of the Smart Cities project should be utilized to create models for environmentally sustainable smart cities. The circumstances in developing nations differ from those in industrialized nations, which have historically worked toward sustainable cities and are currently working toward smart sustainable cities. The Smart cities standards as they stand now seem to place more of an emphasis on governance challenges, social and economic development and the use of contemporary information and communication technology (ICT). Background: Sustainable indicators are the measures that are used to gauge the effectiveness of environmental strategies. These activities are connected to certain goals and outlined in a sustainability plan. Reducing waste during production, for instance or the carbon footprint. Their execution serves as a gauge for whether things are moving in the proper way. Methods: This study emphasizes on 20 top smart cities of India using GIS Mapping techniques and geospatial data science. Results: These indicators are often used to assess if the city of India is accomplishing its goals. If there is a deviation, remedial action may be taken. Sustainability indicators, then, assess both the performance of the city’s growth and its plan execution. Conclusions: But it's crucial to choose the appropriate parameters and make sure they're directly related to the suggested goals. If not, they will basically stop working.

Smart cities are developed to enable modern functionalities (e.g., sustainable energy systems, smart power grids, and electrified transportation networks) and focus on the information and communication technologies (ICTs) in order to improve the operation and efficiency of the future cities. Further, the concept of smart cities is developed to integrate smart technologies and solutions with the foremost goal of improving the quality of life. The advanced metering, control, information, and communication technologies are the backbones of smart cities that are utilized to gather and analyze the data in order to provide energy-efficient, cost-efficient, reliable, and secure services. Smart cities focus on the coordination between different sectors including energy and transportation systems, water supply networks, and healthcare in order to enable more efficient applications. This chapter aims to provide a review on the smart cities and the needs of sustainability for the future cities, as well as the ongoing challenges for smart city implementation. Furthermore, an overview is provided to explain the interdependent power and transportation networks, as one of the key elements of future smart cities. Regarding the applications of smart cities, increasing amount of information should be gathered from the cities and community via distributed sensors, as well as the control devices. Privacy and security issues will rise due to the concerns regarding the protection of the collected data and transmitted control signals against the malicious behaviors. Such issues are also covered in this chapter. Thus, although smart cities can benefit citizens in a variety of aspects, there are some privacy and security concerns regarding the possible data leakage and malicious attacks. To enhance the acceptability of the high penetration of smart cities and their real implementation potential, all the presented aspects are addressed.