Transformation Model towards Sustainable Smart Cities: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as a Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to create a model that contributes to the transformation of Riyadh into a sustainable smart city, as well as to assess the extent to which Riyadh meets the requirements of smart cities in light of the proposed model. To achieve the study’s objectives, the descriptive survey method was used, with a questionnaire that included (30) items to collect appropriate data from the study sample, which consisted of (400) specialists in the field of smart sustainable cities. The study’s findings revealed that the model for transforming Riyadh into a smart sustainable city is built on a number of components, including sustainable urbanization patterns, urban systems and domains, data sources and storage services, cloud computing, big data applications and services, and urban communities and their activities. The study’s findings also revealed that the developed model’s contribution to the transformation of Riyadh into a smart sustainable city was significant, as the arithmetic mean of the respondents’ responses to the components of the study model as a whole was high (3.85). Based on these findings, the study recommended that the city of Riyadh review the urban patterns of modern residential neighborhoods and increase their environmental efficiency, as well as expand the establishment of urban observatories that deal with urban and environmental affairs and emphasize their role in the interim review of residential neighborhoods, which supports the city’s urbanization path. The study also recommended that the city of Riyadh develop and build massive data centers distributed across several regions, as well as work to enable the use of renewable energy production sources, in addition to consolidating Riyadh’s role as a regional center for cloud computing and an attractive technology investment based on innovation in the region.