SMART CITY CONCEPTS, GOVERNANCE, AND SUSTAINABILITY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MALAYSIA AND INDONESIA

The growth of city population has consequences on the sustainability and development of smart regions. International standards can provide good practices in wide areas related to environmental, security and social aspects that contribute to the achievement of economic and sustainable growth, well-being, and safe environment. The aim of this study is to explore if there is an association between the level of smart cities in different regions and the number of certificates that could initiate further development of smart and sustainable cities. We analysed standards that support the development of sustainable and smart cities from different countries and explored their influence on the level of smart and sustainable cities. To measure the performance of cities we used the UN-habitat City Prosperity Initiative (CPI) and its six dimensions: Productivity, Infrastructure Development, Quality of Life, Equity and Social Inclusion, Environmental Sustainability, and Urban Governance and Legislation. To analyse the influence of international standards on smart regions and cities initiative we conducted SEM analysis. The results of the research have proved that there is a significant difference between the level of smart cities in different regions and the number of certificates that could initiate further development of smart and sustainable cities. Additionally, a positive impact of international standards on the development of smart regions and cities is confirmed. We believe that the presented approach might provide additional insights into the factors which impact the development of smart regions and cities and initiate further studies on the topic.

The Smart and Sustainable City Framework (SSCF) redefines the idea of ‘Smart City’ to having “Smart Thinking, Planning and Design” as fundamental for smart and sustainable city development. The framework focuses on the core values of “Smart People, Smart Place, and Smart Planet” that helps shape the city through innovative solutions with technology embedded as an enabler to create a more liveable, walkable, resilient and happy cities for all. Six elements of the Smart and Sustainable City Framework are discussed, which consists of “Smart Living”, “Smart Environment”, “Smart Mobility”, “Smart Infrastructure”, “Smart Governance”, and Smart Economy”. Smart Cultural Precinct (SCP) with the Cultural Triangle at its core in Central, Hong Kong will be used as a case study to demonstrate the use of the SSCF, together with recommendations for Hong Kong and suggestions for the broader application of the SSCF to help shape better cities.

The increasing emphasis on smart city development has placed digital citizen participation at the forefront of sustainable urban governance. This study examines the role of digital citizen participation (DCP) in enhancing the social sustainability of smart city initiatives in Lafia Metropolis, Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Using a mixed-method approach comprising structured questionnaires, digital participatory tools, and stakeholder interviews, the research investigates the relationship between citizen engagement, digital inclusivity, and urban sustainability outcomes. The study integrates theoretical perspectives from Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation (1969) and Nam and Pardo’s Smart City Framework (2011) to assess participation depth, inclusivity, and institutional responsiveness. Simulated results, supported by empirical evidence from existing literature and field context, reveal that approximately 68% of respondents perceive digital participation platforms (such as online town halls, mobile feedback systems, and GIS- based urban mapping) as effective in influencing municipal planning and service delivery. However, disparities in digital literacy, internet accessibility, and institutional transparency remain significant barriers. The findings underscore that DCP strengthens social cohesion, trust, and accountability, thereby fostering social sustainability within urban governance frameworks. The study recommends that local governments adopt inclusive ICT policies, capacity-building programs, and open-data initiatives to deepen citizen involvement in decision-making. By embedding digital participation into the smart city agenda, emerging urban centers like Lafia can accelerate sustainable urban transformation and equitable governance aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 11 and 16.

Throughout history, people have been searching for a more livable and better city. The “double carbon” strategy has put forward new requirements for the development of new smart cities, and the construction of new command cities is inevitable. The article firstly reviews the research on the development of smart cities at home and abroad and reviews the problems that exist in them. Then, it analyzes the current situation and problems in the development of new smart cities in Jining and the requirements for urban transformation and upgrading under the “double carbon” strategy, concerning the policy background of the development of new smart cities in Jining. Drawing on useful experiences from the construction of new smart cities at home and abroad, the article proposes countermeasures for the development of new smart cities in Jining in three dimensions: government, enterprises, and individuals, in the hope of promoting the development of new smart cities in Jining by taking active countermeasures. The article hopes to explore feasible countermeasures for the development of a new type of smart city at the prefectural level to provide a reference for the construction of smart cities in other small and medium-sized cities in China and to promote the urbanization and urban transformation process in China.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper was to identify the main necessary competences for smart cities’ development. From their inception until now, smart cities are striving to clarify their identity and become better, and thus, smarter. The whole process is in many ways similar to the journey of a child in his quest of growing into a smart adult, with the help of parents and support from educators. But it is not easy to tell how we, as citizens, through civic, educational and governance structures, raise smart cities. What competences do we need? This was the main question for the present essay, generated from several theoretical and practical experiences.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, literature analysis, synthesis and theoretical inferences, for the smart city problematiques, and induction and exploratory qualitative analysis, for soft, civilizational competences, were used.FindingsThe main conclusion is that the literature still associates the smart city especially with its hard dimension, the highly developed and intelligent technologies, including information and communication technologies (ICTs), despite a growing number of studies dedicated to the soft, human and social capital component. The intangible, soft component – the human actor – plays an equally, if not even more important role, through mechanisms affecting all classical dimensions of smart cities (smart economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, living). Civilizational competences, soft skills or human-related characteristics of cities strongly influenced by culture (at national, regional, organizational and individual levels) are crucial for the development of smart and competitive cities. Civilizational competences are grouped into four categories: enterprise culture, discoursive culture, civic culture and daily culture. If we want to make our cities smart, we need to develop these competences – first define them, then identify their antecedents or influence factors and measure them.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has several limits. First, the exploratory nature in itself, with many inductive and abductive suppositions that will need further testing. Second, the literature selection has a certain degree of subjectivity owing to the fact that besides the common, classical theory of smart cities, the authors were particularly interested in rather heterodox opinions about the subject, which lead them to the inclusion of singular or isolated points of view on narrower issues.Practical implicationsThe findings of this exploratory conceptual essay could be used for further testing of hypotheses on the relationship between civilizational competences and smart cities’ development.Social implicationsLocal and regional administrations could use the results to increase civil society’s involvement in the development of smart cities.Originality/valueThe study points out some new connections and relations for the smart city problematiques, and explicitly suggests relating the development of smart cities to the development of civilizational competences, as a complex category of factors going beyond the unique dimension of “people” or “human and social capital” from the smart cities literature. It is an exploratory outcome, generating new research hypotheses for the relationships between smart city development and culture-related factors grouped under the “cities” civilizational competences’ label.

The concept of smart city evolved with the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in various sub-systems and processes in urban environment. The development of the smart cities is the best possible solution to major urban issues. It contributes towards economic and social development of the residents. It aims to provide the cordial environment in the domains of healthcare, education, transportation, power generation and dissipation, security, living, industry, etc., to the inhabitants to make their lives comfortable. Sustainability of these services is another major objective in a smart city framework. Along with the true realization of the idea of a smart city, advanced computational and communication technologies are contributing hugely towards its sustainable development. Communication technologies act as backbone to ensure connectivity at the various levels in a smart city framework. Novel smart city solutions for different application domains are designed and deployed by the industry using advanced computational technologies like IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Big Data and Cloud Computing. In this work, authors discuss the concept of smart city, its architecture and sustainability. Different operational domains in a smart city ecosystem are elaborated. The cyber physical aspect of the smart cities is discussed in brief. The role of various computational and communication technologies in the sustainable development of smart cities is presented. Limiting factors in the deployment of various advanced technologies in different smart city domains are highlighted. Security issues associated with the technological sustainable development of different smart city services along with existing solutions are discussed. The article is concluded by highlighting the future research directions.

Developing a “smart city” can follow numerous pathways. Policymakers can follow a technology-focused pathway, a data-driven approach or an environmentally-influenced perspective, among many others. However, following a people-centric smart city developmental path requires a societal approach that involves public engagement and participation as a core developmental philosophy. This requires the city to develop the capacity to widely measure wellbeing and the state of “happiness”, and respond through its public policy frameworks. City-wide innovations using societal big data are making such engagements feasible today. The case of Dubai's “Happiness Agenda” is an example of a smart city initiative that applies a hybrid of big data-driven tools and more traditional approaches in citizen-government interactions. Dubai's transformation plan, is primarily fueled by digital technology and data, with a core focus on public “happiness” and making Dubai one of the “happiest” places to live — as stated in the vision of Smart Dubai Office. Within the smart city framework, such vision entails the challenge of shaping happiness into national policy goals and employing digital technology to apply this vision. This paper reports the findings of semi-structured interviews with the people behind the design of Dubai's Happiness Agenda. The findings highlight the challenges and enablers of developing a people-centric developmental pathway towards “happiness” in the age of big data and smart cities. Even when a positive view towards citizen-engagement exists in government, how can the smart city stakeholders reach a unified definition for happiness in the digital age? How can big data enable the mapping of various needs of a cosmopolitan and culturally diverse society? This paper provides an exploratory case study of citizen-centric and data-driven smart city development initiative, which can provide valuable policy lessons to smart city policymakers and enrich the smart city and e-participation literature.1

Purpose: The Smart Cities due to their important role in infrastructure building activities and offering smart services to their residents in living an enjoyable life are always in the limelight and discussions. The current COVID-19 pandemic has however changed the situation, and has forced us to rethink the way we operate, carry out day to day activities and services. COVID-19 pandemic has changed the normal routine life to a significant extent, damaged the economies of many countries, shifted our business priorities, and so on. In such situations, how can Smart Cities remain unaffected due to COVID-19? This paper has analysed and discussed in detail the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Smart Cities operations and development and also, how this impact can be measured. It has described in detail how Smart Cities has changed their priorities and how they are more focusing on building Smart Healthcare facilities, Smart Isolation Wards, Smart Medicare facilities, services related to Telemedicine, Virtual Doctor, dedicated COVID-19 Command and Control Centres and so on. The paper has also highlighted the post COVID-19 Pandemic era for Smart Cities development and operations. Finally, the paper has concluded that Smart Cities development during and post COVID-19 Pandemic has witnessed a short obstacle in its growth journey, Smart Cities are definitely going to win the war against COVID-19 and will become Smarter in the future to tackle such pandemics. Design/Methodology/Approach: This research paper made use of available secondary data in research journal papers, online books, white papers, and dedicated websites on the research subject area to analyze the impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Smart Cities Development and Operations. Findings/Result: Due to COVID-19 Pandemic, it is observed that many sectors growth slow down due to budget cut and financial constraints, however, certain sectors such as Medical Infrastructure, Insurance, and eCommerce have seen booms, this has made Smart Cities to have a strong focus on certain Smart Services related to Medical facilities, IT infrastructure to facilitate contactless transactions, Telemedicine Service, Smart Isolation Wards, etc. whereas services with respect to entertainment parks, tourism, etc. slowed down due to less priority and budget constraints. Originality/Value: Based on the available secondary data, this research has identified the impact of COVID-19 on ongoing Smart Cities development and also how its priorities and focus got shifted to build up certain services and infrastructure. The paper has also highlighted post COVID-19, how Smart Cities development, operations, and maintenance activities will be affected. Paper Type: Secondary data-based Research

A smart city is an urban policy innovation that can improve the community's quality of life by promoting environmental, social, and economic sustainability issues. The involvement and participation of civil society in developing smart cities is a major issue in implementing inclusive smart cities. However, gender issues are often forgotten in developing sustainable smart cities. This article examines two issues. First, the importance of gender issues integration in the development of sustainable smart cities in Indonesia. Second, the importance of gender mainstreaming policy in the development of smart cities in Indonesia. This is a desk study or literature study. Data were obtained from research results published in national and international journals. Data was obtained through accredited journal search engines, namely google scholar, SagePub and Researchgate. The research results show that development of smart city in Indonesia is not yet gender responsive, causing gender inequality gender and excluding women from development. To respond to this, thus there is a need for gender mainstreaming policies in developing smart cities through an overview of the challenges of gender mainstreaming in developing smart cities. Thus, this research recommends a gender mainstreaming strategy as a policy in developing smart cities in Indonesia. Gender mainstreaming policy in smart city development need to be to create a smart city life that is just, inclusive and involves women in development.

The study aims to avoid the phenomenon that thousand cities seem the same in the construction of smart cities and the efforts of all walks of life are jointed to implement the construction of smart cities and the creation of city brands. First, the basic theory of smart city construction is introduced. Second, the restricting and promoting factors influencing smart city construction and development are analyzes, and the evaluation system of smart city development is established. Then, the model for smart city construction and development based on the neural network is implemented. Finally, some domestic cities are selected as the dataset to build a training model, and the city brand optimization strategy is proposed. On this basis, an evaluation system for smart city development based on the intelligent neural network and Grey relational analysis Back Propagation Neural Network (GRA-BPNN) is obtained. The entropy weight method (EWM), grey relational analysis (GRA) method and the evaluation method based on Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solutionv (TOPSIS) are regarded as the members of the control group, and the results of different methods for evaluating the development of smart cities are compared. The results show that the modeling of smart city construction based on neural networks can help to implement an evaluation model for smart city construction and development, and it can help evaluate smart city construction and development accurately. And then the corresponding strategies are proposed to speed up the construction of smart cities with its local characteristics, and then city brands are built. Compared with other evaluation algorithms, the performance of the algorithm proposed is better and more stable and the evaluation results are more reasonable than those of the others, which can prove that the evaluation algorithm is feasible and scientific. This study provides a new idea for the application of deep learning to smart city construction and city brand building.

The smart city development has been growing over years, with the concept highly debated in all over countries. The concept of smart city gives attention to every country around the world as to provide their community a better quality of life. The smart city concept has been drawing people into it globally for the past decades. The explosive growth of information, communication and technologies (ICTs) has led to integrating applications and systems to produce a better outcome. IOT (Internet of Thing) has become a centre attraction in establishing a smart city as it can send data in real-time and provide data regularly throughout the day. Thus, this paper presents the development of the architecture of smart city in Malaysia by utilizing Internet of Things (IOTs). In this paper, the relationships between IOTs and smart city elements are reviewed and compared. Then, the comparison of smart city components between Putrajaya, Dubai and Brisbane are established. The comparison is based on infrastructure, environment, IOTs and culture. Finally, the architecture for smart city is formed.

City administrators have begun to consider citizens’ perception as an essential enabler of smart and sustainable city development. In response to their need, our study mainly aimed to analyze the citizens’ perceptions related to the attributes of a smart city and to offer an evidence-based importance–performance analysis (IPA) technique, revised with triangular number fuzzy, to set priorities to develop it further successfully, taking Oradea, Romania, as an example. Specifically, we investigated varying the citizens’ perceptions regarding the attributes of a smart city across the thematic content analysis followed by an IPA approach to identify the attributes of a smart city that could be expected to advance its future development. The results show that most of our respondents appreciated the city administrators’ efforts and expressed relatively higher preferences for the fifteen smart city attributes of Oradea on which the local authorities should focus. The research brings valuable insight into the strategic decision making related to smart city development, which can serve academics and practitioners, complementing existing literature on the citizens’ perception of sustainable smart city development.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of the internet of things (IoT) system for smart cities and deliberate on the technological aspects involved in developing smart cities along with the framework, impact and benefits of IoT for smart cities.Design/methodology/approachThis research is based on the review and synthesis of the papers on the broader areas of IoT for the application and implication towards the smart cities. The prime focus of this paper is to realize the IoT systems for smart city’s development and implementation of various technologies in the context of the Indian environment.FindingsThe outcome of the paper explores the highlights of the importance of the IoT system, including the technological framework, impact and benefits for smart cities. The outcome also highlights the application of IoT for smart cities. This paper provides direction regarding future degrees, potential conceivable outcomes and issues concerning the technological side of smart cities. IoT can change the lives of the people and support evolving urban areas for developing smart cities in India.Originality/valueThe paper deliberates on the novel techno-managerial approach towards the endeavour of smart cities using the IoT.

The research investigates the transformative implications of integrating distance learning within the framework of smart cities, unraveling its role in reshaping educational paradigms. Within the dynamic context of urban development, the study explores the symbiotic relationship between distance learning and smart cities, aiming to elucidate how this fusion contributes to inclusive, adaptable, and future-oriented educational ecosystems. Emphasizing the significance of distance learning in democratizing education, the study delves into its ability to transcend geographical barriers, offering flexible and personalized learning experiences. Through an extensive literature review and a comprehensive methodology involving surveys and diverse stakeholder perspectives, the study examines smart education's multifaceted role in smart city development, emphasizing technological integration, innovation, and socioeconomic empowerment. Furthermore, the research delineates the developmental leap facilitated by distance learning within smart cities, highlighting its role in advancing inclusivity, lifelong learning, and sustainability goals. The intricate relationship between distance learning, smart learning, and smart cities is analyzed, showcasing their interconnectedness in fostering educational evolution within technologically advanced urban landscapes. Additionally, the study underscores the comprehensive advancements in smart education by amalgamating innovative technological integration, refined pedagogical practices, and robust infrastructural frameworks. The research concludes by identifying key findings, highlighting advancements, and addressing persisting challenges in infrastructure, connectivity, and data privacy, signaling areas necessitating improvement. Ultimately, the study underscores the pivotal role of distance learning in propelling smart education within smart cities, culminating in the creation of inclusive, accessible, and technologically enriched educational landscapes.

This study investigates the awareness of Malaysian urban youth concerning intelligent city concepts and their potential as human capital in advancing smart city development. In the context of accelerated global urbanization and the rising demographic significance of young populations, youth engagement is becoming an essential component of sustainable urban transformation. However, empirical evidence on youth awareness and participation in smart city initiatives in Malaysia is still limited. To address this gap, a survey of 200 youths aged 15 to 30 in Putrajaya and Iskandar was conducted using purposive and convenience sampling. Respondents completed structured items adapted from established smart city frameworks, covering the six smart city dimensions and youths’ perceived roles in urban innovation, measured on a 5-point Likert scale.The findings reveal a substantial level of awareness among respondents, with strong recognition of key smart city elements such as digital infrastructure, sustainable environments and intelligent mobility systems. The majority also expressed positive perceptions of their responsibility and capability to contribute, with 81.5 percent strongly agreeing that youth should monitor smart city services and promote digital awareness. The results demonstrate that urban Malaysian youth constitute an underutilised human capital resource that can significantly support intelligent urban development. By integrating technological and human capital perspectives, this study enriches smart city literature with a people-centered analytical orientation. Policy implications suggest that national frameworks such as the Malaysian Smart Cities Framework should prioritise youth empowerment through education, digital skills enhancement and participatory planning to strengthen inclusive and future-oriented urban communities.