Margarita Angelidou

The Role of Smart City Characteristics in the Plans of Fifteen Cities

ABSTRACT This paper identifies the characteristics of smart cities as they emerge from the recent literature. It then examines whether and in what way these characteristics are present in the smart city plans of 15 cities: Amsterdam, Barcelona, London, PlanIT Valley, Stockholm, Cyberjaya, Singapore, King Abdullah Economic City, Masdar, Skolkovo, Songdo, Chicago, New York, Rio de Janeiro, and Konza. The results are presented with respect to each smart city characteristic. As expected, most strategies emphasize the role of information and communication technologies in improving the functionality of urban systems and advancing knowledge transfer and innovation networks. However, this research yields other interesting findings that may not yet have been documented across multiple case studies; for example, most smart city strategies fail to incorporate bottom-up approaches, are poorly adapted to accommodate the local needs of their area, and consider issues of privacy and security inadequately.

Enhancing sustainable urban development through smart city applications

Purpose This paper investigates the potential contribution of smart city approaches and tools to sustainable urban development in the environment domain. Recent research has highlighted the need to explore the relation of smart and sustainable cities more systematically, focusing on practical applications that could enable a deeper understanding of the included domains, typologies and design concepts, and this paper aims to address this research gap. At the same time, it tries to identify whether these applications could contribute to the “zero vision” strategy, an extremely ambitious challenge within the field of smart cities. Design/methodology/approach This objective is pursued through an in-depth investigation of available open source and proprietary smart city applications related to environmental sustainability in urban environments. A total of 32 applications were detected through the Intelligent/Smart Cities Open Source (ICOS) community, a meta-repository for smart cities solutions. The applications are analyzed comparatively regarding (i) the environmental issue addressed, (ii) the associated mitigation strategies, (iii) the included innovation mechanism, (iv) the role of information and communication technologies and (v) the overall outcome. Findings The findings suggest that the smart and sustainable city landscape is extremely fragmented both on the policy and the technical levels. There is a host of unexplored opportunities toward smart sustainable development, many of which are still unknown. Similar findings are reached for all categories of environmental challenges in cities. Research limitations pertain to the analysis of a relatively small number of applications. The results can be used to inform policy making toward becoming more proactive and impactful both locally and globally. Given that smart city application market niches are also identified, they are also of special interest to developers, user communities and digital entrepreneurs. Originality/value The value added by this paper is two-fold. At the theoretical level, it offers a neat conceptual bridge between smart and sustainable cities debate. At the practical level, it identifies under-researched and under-exploited fields of smart city applications that could be opportunities to attain the “zero vision” objective.

Engaging digital services for the creation of urban knowledge ecosystems: the case of Thermi, Greece

This paper discusses the way digital services advance urban knowledge ecosystems. The introductory part sets the frame of this paper; the second part conducts a systematic literature review regarding the association of knowledge with urban development since the beginning of the millennium, placing emphasis on urban knowledge ecosystems. The third part explores the benefits of using digital services in the implementation an urban knowledge ecosystem. The fourth and last part of the main body of this paper examines the urban knowledge ecosystem at the medium-sized city of Thermi, Greece, where in recent years a series of digital services were put in operation. The final and conclusive part of this paper examines the integration of digital services within the urban realm, based on the experience of Thermi, and how this process can support the development of knowledge and innovation-led cities.

Smart city planning and development shortcomings

This paper explores smart city planning and development shortcomings. In particular, it investigates eleven cases of smart city strategies and the shortcomings that were observed during their planning and implementation stages. The cases include: Barcelona Smart City, PlanlT Valley, Stockholm Smart City, Cyberjaya, King Abdullah Economic City, Masdar City, Skolkovo, Songdo International Business District, Chicago Smart City, Rio de Janeiro Smart City, and Konza Technology City. The paper proceeds with the synthesis of the findings and their critical appraisal. Shortcomings are classified into economic and budget shortages, bureaucratic and organizational challenges, challenges in the development and layout of digital services, poor physical planning, struggle to attract investment and support the development of new businesses, low performance in attracting and engaging users, and stakeholder resistance. In turn, the shortcomings are clustered in two distinct groups and analyzed in terms of causes and effects. The paper closes with mitigation propositions, accounting for past experience and novel approaches to this end.

How to Overcome the Dichotomous Nature of Smart City Research: Proposed Methodology and Results of a Pilot Study

ABSTRACT Overcoming the dichotomous nature of smart city research is fundamental to providing cities with a clear understanding of how smart city development should be approached. This paper introduces a research methodology for conducting the multiple-case study analyses necessary to meet this challenge. After presenting the methodology, we test the practical feasibility, effectiveness, and logistics of such a methodology by examining the activities that Vienna has implemented in building its smart city development strategy. The results of this pilot study show how the application of the proposed methodology can help smart city researchers codify the knowledge produced from multiple smart city experiences, using a common protocol. This in turn allows them to: (1) coordinate efforts when investigating the strategic principles that drive smart city development and test the divergent hypotheses emerging from the scientific literature; (2) share the results of this investigation and hypothesis testing by conducting extensive cross-case analyses among multiple studies able to capture the generic qualities of the findings; (3) gain consensus on the way to think about, conceptualize, and standardize the analysis of smart city developments; and (4) develop innovative monitoring and evaluation systems for smart city development strategies by reflecting upon the lessons learned from current practices.

From the “smart city” to the “smart metropolis”? Building resilience in the urban periphery

The “smart city” has risen to global prominence over the past two decades as an urban planning and development strategy. As a broad but contested toolkit of technological services and policy interventions aimed at improving the efficacy and efficiency of urban systems, the “smart city” is subject to several pressing critiques. This paper acknowledges these concerns, but recognizes the potential of “urban intelligence” to enhance the resiliency of metropolitan areas. As such, we focus on an under-researched dimension of smart city urbanism: its application in peripheral urban areas. The paper introduces a threefold typology of: (a) geographic (spatial); (b) hard (material); and (c) soft (social) urban peripherality. Second, it reviews the concept of urban resilience and considers how its central characteristics can inform the objectives and implementation of “smart city” infrastructures and planning. Six European smart city plans are assessed via a qualitative content analysis, to identify the target of smart city actions; the characteristics of urban resilience mobilized; and the spatial focus of planned interventions. The comparative analysis reveals a variegated set of smart-city approaches. Notably, “smart” actions aimed at enhancing social innovation are the most common type of intervention, while overall there remains a strong tendency for smart urbanism to focus on the urban core. We conclude by calling for a research agenda addressing smartness in, of, and for, peripheral urban spaces and communities.