On the taxonomy of smart city indicators and their alignment with sustainability and resilience

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Smart City ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Limited Attention ◽

Output Indicators ◽

Indicator Sets ◽

Indicator Type

As interest in smart city initiatives continues to grow rapidly, various involved actors and stakeholders increasingly rely on assessment frameworks or indicator sets for different purposes such as monitoring and benchmarking performance, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and determining priority intervention areas. Accordingly, many smart city assessment frameworks and/or indicator sets have been developed in the last decade. To guide actors and stakeholders in their selection of the most suitable frameworks, several studies have examined contents and structure of smart city assessment frameworks or indicator sets. Such studies have significantly improved our understanding of the thematic focus of assessment tools and their methodological approaches. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on the taxonomy of smart city indicators. In addition, since other concepts such as sustainability and resilience are increasingly recognized to be connected to the smart city concept, more clarity on how different assessment frameworks or indicator sets are aligned with sustainability and resilience dimensions and characteristics is needed. To fill these gaps, we developed a taxonomy and examined 33 assessment frameworks or indicator sets in terms of indicator type, sectoral linkages, and alignment with sustainability and resilience dimensions and characteristics. In terms of indicator type, results show that output indicators are dominant but limited attention has been paid to impact indicators. In terms of sectoral focus, existing indicators are mainly related to information and communication technologies, economy, and governance. Regarding resilience abilities, indicators are mainly related to planning abilities and limited attention has been paid to recovery and adaptation. As for resilience characteristics, reasonable levels of alignment with resourcefulness and efficiency were observed, but indicators are not well-aligned with other important characteristics such as redundancy and diversity. Finally, in terms of sustainability, limited alignment with the environmental dimension was found, which raises concerns regarding the suitability of smart city indicators for guiding environmental sustainability and informing efforts aimed at addressing climate change issues. Results of this study can support interested stakeholders in their efforts to select the most suitable assessment frameworks or indicator sets for promoting resilient, smart, and sustainable communities.

Defining and assessing the transformational nature of smart city governance: insights from four European cases

International Review of Administrative Sciences ◽

10.1177/0020852318757063 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 86 (1) ◽

pp. 20-37 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Giorgia Nesti

Keyword(s):

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Smart City ◽

Smart Cities ◽

Public Governance ◽

Administrative Practices ◽

New Public ◽

Institutional Structures ◽

Information And Communication

Smart cities are a new approach to urban development based on the extensive use of information and communication technologies and on the promotion of environmental sustainability, economic development and innovation. The article is aimed at discussing whether the adoption of a smart city approach entails the transformation of existing institutional structures and administrative practices. To this end, four cases of European smart cities are analysed: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Turin and Vienna. The article describes their models of governance, investigates the level of transformation that occurred in their governmental structures, outlines the main drawbacks and identifies possible connections with the emergent paradigm of the New Public Governance.

Role of Information and Communication Technology, Foreign Direct Investment and Trade Openness in Environmental Sustainability

Journal of Accounting and Finance in Emerging Economies ◽

10.26710/jafee.v7i2.1656 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

pp. 263-272

Author(s):

Sulaman Hafeez Siddiqui ◽

Sohail Saeed ◽

Areeba Khan ◽

Hina Bhatti

Keyword(s):

Co2 Emissions ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Trade Openness ◽

Fdi Inflows ◽

Long Run ◽

Short Run ◽

The Government

Purpose: The benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in environmental resource management has been a topic of hot discussion for the policymakers across the world. For the purpose, the government of Pakistan took initiative in 2018 to use technology for the country’s social welfare, financial benefits and to enhance environmental sustainability and named it as “Digital Pakistan Initiative”.Design/Methodology/Approach: For analysis, this study took CO2 emissions as the dependent variable and ICT, FDI inflows, and Trade Openness as independent variables. Data were collected on bimonthly basis from 2004 through 2019, and analyzed employing ARDL approach. Main purpose of the study was to examine the short-run and long-run relationship among carbon emissions and ICT, FDI Inflows and Trade Openness.Findings: The findings show that there exists a short-run relationship among all the variables; however, FDI inflows and trade openness have a significant relationship with CO2 emissions. The results also exhibit that there is no long-run relationship between CO2 emissions, FDI inflows, and Trade openness while ICT has an insignificant long-run relationship with CO2 emissions. With the increase of information and communication, the country’s environmental sustainability is also increased. Implications/Originality/Value: The current study was based on least considered variables and the pioneer in testing the complex relationship through VAR estimation.

Embodied AI-Driven Operation of Smart Cities: A Concise Review

10.36227/techrxiv.16370823 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

FARZAN SHENAVARMASOULEH ◽

Farid Ghareh Mohammadi ◽

M. Hadi Amini ◽

Hamid R. Arabnia

Keyword(s):

Smart City ◽

Smart Cities ◽

Autonomous Driving ◽

Future Research ◽

Intelligent Network ◽

Concise Review ◽

Cloud Technologies

<div>A smart city can be seen as a framework, comprised of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). An intelligent network of connected devices that collect data with their sensors and transmit them using wireless and cloud technologies in order to communicate with other assets in the ecosystem plays a pivotal role in this framework. Maximizing the quality of life of citizens, making better use of available resources, cutting costs, and improving sustainability are the ultimate goals that a smart city is after. Hence, data collected from these connected devices will continuously get thoroughly analyzed to gain better insights into the services that are being offered across the city; with this goal in mind that they can be used to make the whole system more efficient.</div><div>Robots and physical machines are inseparable parts of a smart city. Embodied AI is the field of study that takes a deeper look into these and explores how they can fit into real-world environments. It focuses on learning through interaction with the surrounding environment, as opposed to Internet AI which tries to learn from static datasets. Embodied AI aims to train an agent that can See (Computer Vision), Talk (NLP), Navigate and Interact with its environment (Reinforcement Learning), and Reason (General Intelligence), all at the same time. Autonomous driving cars and personal companions are some of the examples that benefit from Embodied AI nowadays.</div><div>In this paper, we attempt to do a concise review of this field. We will go through its definitions, its characteristics, and its current achievements along with different algorithms, approaches, and solutions that are being used in different components of it (e.g. Vision, NLP, RL). We will then explore all the available simulators and 3D interactable databases that will make the research in this area feasible. Finally, we will address its challenges and identify its potentials for future research.</div>

Digital Business Solutions and the Network Environment of the Smart City Infrastructure

Scientific Research and Development Socio-Humanitarian Research and Technology ◽

10.12737/2306-1731-2021-10-1-21-28 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 21-28

Author(s):

Petr Levchaev

Keyword(s):

Smart City ◽

Social Institutions ◽

Practical Significance ◽

Network Environment ◽

Information Economy ◽

Modern Business ◽

Information Products

The purpose of the study is to develop theoretical positions, methodological approaches and practical aspects of the formation of a system of digital business solutions and the network environment of the smart city infrastructure. In accordance with the intended purpose it is supposed to solve a series of staged objectives, namely: to systematize the evolution of information and communication technologies; to identify the peculiarities of the network character of modern business and social institutions, as well as the peculiarities of the information economy and market information products and services; to substantiate the basic principles and laws of the functioning of economic entities in the information and digital economy. The practical significance of the research lies in the development of a system of digital business solutions and the network environment of the smart city infrastructure in the context of the possibilities of their synergy and singular development.

Advances in Computer and Electrical Engineering - Smart Grid Analytics for Sustainability and Urbanization ◽

Understanding Smart City Solutions in Turkish Cities From the Perspective of Sustainability

10.4018/978-1-5225-3996-4.ch009 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 236-266

Author(s):

H. Filiz Alkan Meshur

Keyword(s):

Smart City ◽

Social Life ◽

Global Scale ◽

Single Step ◽

General Practices ◽

Urban Problems

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the concept of smart city and its potential solutions to correct urban problems. Smart city practices and solutions have been investigated through the lens of a sustainable perspective. As the general practices in the global scale were examined, particular focus has been directed to smart city practices in Turkey and applicable suggestions have been developed. A number of cities in Turkey rank the lowest in the list of livable cities index. Consequential to the rapidly rising population ratios, the quality of provided services declines; economic and social life in cities are adversely affected and brand images of cities are deteriorated. With the implementation of smart city practices, such problems could be corrected, and these cities could gain competitive advantage over their rivals. The key component of this smart administration is to most effectively utilize information and communication technologies during each single step of this process.

Building Sound Foundations for Smart City Government

International Journal of E-Planning Research ◽

10.4018/ijepr.2014100101 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 3 (4) ◽

pp. 1-22 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Hans Jochen Scholl ◽

Marlen Jurisch ◽

Helmut Krcmar ◽

Margit C. Scholl

Keyword(s):

Smart City ◽

City Government ◽

Urban Spaces ◽

City Governments ◽

Academic Literature ◽

Institutional Architecture ◽

The City

City governments around the world have increasingly engaged in “smart city” initiatives. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are at the core of these initiatives. City governments appear to play important roles in making the urban spaces, in which they are embedded, more attractive, more competitive, more livable, and smarter. The authors interviewed City officials in Munich, Germany, and asked for the definitions of “smart city,” which they then compared to Munich's smart city-related program. While the practitioners' definitions differed in part from those in the academic literature, the smart city overhaul program at Munich city government had a direct relationship to the practitioners' understanding of smartness. The authors portray and discuss the City of Munich institutional architecture overhaul and its expected and realized benefits, and compare the results to those of an earlier study on the City of Seattle. Both city governments evidently pursue different approaches, the effectiveness of which can more readily be assessed only at a future point of the smart city evolution.

Managing Large Amounts of Data Generated by a Smart City Internet of Things Deployment

International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems ◽

10.4018/ijswis.2016100102 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 22-42 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Jorge Lanza ◽

Pablo Sotres ◽

Luis Sánchez ◽

Jose Antonio Galache ◽

Juan Ramón Santana ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Big Data ◽

Internet Of Things ◽

Smart City ◽

Smart Cities ◽

Added Value ◽

Amount Of Information ◽

The City

The Smart City concept is being developed from a lot of different axes encompassing multiple areas of social and technical sciences. However, something that is common to all these approaches is the central role that the capacity of sharing information has. Hence, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are seen as key enablers for the transformation of urban regions into Smart Cities. Two of these technologies, namely Internet of Things and Big Data, have a predominant position among them. The capacity to “sense the city” and access all this information and provide added-value services based on knowledge derived from it are critical to achieving the Smart City vision. This paper reports on the specification and implementation of a software platform enabling the management and exposure of the large amount of information that is continuously generated by the IoT deployment in the city of Santander.

Access to ICT in Poland and the Co-Creation of Urban Space in the Process of Modern Social Participation in a Smart City—A Case Study

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12052136 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (5) ◽

pp. 2136 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Patrycja Szarek-Iwaniuk ◽

Adam Senetra

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Urban Space ◽

Social Participation ◽

Smart City ◽

Local Community ◽

Smart Cities ◽

Social Awareness ◽

Information And Communication

A smart city is one of the latest concepts in the development of modern cities. It has evolved from the foregoing smart cities 1.0 and 2.0 to the smart city 3.0, where members of the local community play the main role as not only the recipients of the introduced changes and modern technology, but also as the creators of urban space. One of the goals of a smart city 3.0 is to promote sustainable urban development by improving the quality of life, enhancing social participation, and involving local community members in planning and decision-making processes. This study set out to determine the role and significance of e-participation methods in the smart city concept. The results of questionnaires exploring the importance of e-participation in urban development are presented. The paper also discusses changes in the availability of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Poland. The secondary goal was to present the geo-questionnaire and Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) as modern research tools. Internet tools based on geoinformation systems have considerable potential for mobilizing social participation in spatial planning (Public Participation GIS). The present study postulates the need for modern social participation methods in shaping urban space and promoting the sustainable development of cities. The study highlights the main challenges in the research process. The cooperation between the authorities and the citizens contributes to the development of a civil society, informed decision-making, social involvement in public life, and more effective governance at the local, regional, and national level. Measures that foster cooperation between the authorities and local communities, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), and growing social awareness and social participation in managing development are the components of a modern smart city and the building blocks of an e-society. The study also revealed positive changes in access to ICT and their contribution to bridging the digital divide in Poland. Higher levels of social awareness regarding participation and e-participation promote the growth of smart cities.

Assessment of Cities in Russia According to the Concept of "Smart City" in the Context of the Application of Information and Communication Technologies

Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences ◽

10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n18p55 ◽

2014 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

I.S. Glebova

Keyword(s):

Smart City ◽

Information And Communication

City Data Hub: Implementation of Standard-Based Smart City Data Platform for Interoperability

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s20237000 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (23) ◽

pp. 7000

Author(s):

Seungmyeong Jeong ◽

Seongyun Kim ◽

Jaeho Kim

Keyword(s):

Smart City ◽

Smart Cities ◽

Life Quality ◽

Data Platform ◽

Standard Application ◽

Application Programming ◽

Programming Interfaces

Like what happened to the Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities have become abundant in our lives as well. One of the smart city definitions commonly used is that smart cities solve city problems to enhance citizens’ life quality and make cities sustainable. From the perspective of information and communication technologies (ICT), we think this can be done by collecting and analyzing data to generate insights. The City Data Hub, which is a standard-based city data platform that has been developed, and a couple of problem-solving examples have been demonstrated. The key elements for smart city platforms have been chosen and they have been included in the core architecture principles and implemented as a platform. It has been proven that standard application programming interfaces (APIs) and common data models with data marketplaces, which are the keys, increase interoperability and guarantee ecosystem extensibility.