Abstract
The Smart City concept is still evolving and can be viewed as a branding exercise by big corporations, which is why the concept is not being used by the United Nations (U.N.). Smart Cities tend to represent the information, communication, and technological (ICT) industry alone without considering the values and cultural and historical profiles that some cities hold as legacies. However, the technology inherent in Smart Cities promises efficiencies and options that could allow cities to be more “inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable” as required by the U.N. agenda including cultural heritage. There is a notable lack of Smart City application to cultural and historical urban fabrics. Instead, the modernist new town approach has emerged under this new rubric leading to many problems such as urban decay and unsustainable car dependence. This study therefore presents a review of the literature on the nature, challenges, and opportunities of Smart Cities. A new Smart Cities framework is proposed based on the dimensions of culture, metabolism, and governance. These findings seek to inform policy makers of an alternative viewpoint on the Smart City paradigm, which focuses on urban outcomes rather than technology in isolation.
Highlights
A multitude of contrasting views on Smart Cities have emerged since their proposal.Some researchers visualise the Smart City approach as a potential solution to the issues pertaining to enhanced urbanisation and the need for sustainability [1,2,3]
In the academic literature and practice, Smart Cities are generally focused on heavy investment in state-of-the-art ICT, especially ICT-based sensors, to offer big data that will be analyzed in real-time to lead to informed decision-making
Some studies have warned about the branding exercise being laid out by Smart Cities’ suppliers that are essentially promoting a one-size fits all model without considering broader economic development policies
Summary
A multitude of contrasting views on Smart Cities have emerged since their proposal. Some researchers visualise the Smart City approach as a potential solution to the issues pertaining to enhanced urbanisation and the need for sustainability [1,2,3]. The urban SDG has 10 targets and 14 indicators, but throughout all these instructions for cities, none say that we should have Smart Cities, despite the increasing use of the term The reason for this omission is apparently that Smart Cities are seen to be essentially a branding war between different multinational corporations in the information, communication, and technological (ICT) space. This study seeks to review the literature about the Smart City paradigm in terms of culture, metabolism, and governance These findings are used to propose a theoretical framework for the Smart City paradigm. We further expect that this study may act as a guide for policy makers from emerging cities who aspire to leapfrog into the 21st century without the need to invest heavily in ICT, but want to work more on human capital and governance building for ICT where necessary, but not viewing ICT as a necessary and over-riding project for development
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