“Smart City” Definition and ITS Practice in India

Abstract

Smart cities have fascinated the world as the application is emerging as a popular choice for city management in developed countries. And thus, the Indian administrators are lured to resolve their everlasting urban issues through the proposed Smart City Initiatives. The priorities are set as sustainable and inclusive development. But public in general wants resolutions on whatever their most basic immediate need is, which varies city to city, place to place. We have come a long way since inception of Smart Cities in India in 2015, but still the smart city tag creates a doubt as to what exactly it is. Different experts from different domain visualise it from their unique perspective of urgencies and priorities. And consequent models of smart cities world over are different from one another, not only in terms of extent of use of technology but also with the goals set in development. This brings us to the individual pursuit of development and the question, what is smart for us? And then this is a multidimensional question, as it brings numerous intellectual orientations, setting up entirely different perspectives. There are debates on priorities and context and consequently the different opinions tend to dilute the rational of smart cities. This study covers evolution of smart cities world over for clarity on what is meant out of the Smart City as an Operating System for city or a Development tool and in what perspective. And as there are so many parallel technical aspects and so much of divergent details that a beginner fails to grasp the Smart City ‘pedagogical geography’, this paper attempts to cover most of the terms, classification and types of Smart City framework to bring clarity on what means what.