scholarly journals The Puzzling Concept of Smart City in Central and Eastern Europe: A Literature Review Designed for Policy Development

2020 ◽  
pp. 70-87
Author(s):  
Bogdan-Constantin Ibănescu ◽  
Alexandru Bănică ◽  
Mihail Eva ◽  
Alexandra Cehan
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Strategic Approach

The modern concept of smart city rose from a relatively ambiguous term dealing with the future of urban areas to one of the most popular contemporary fields of research. Tackling a considerable range of topics from digitalization, citizen involvement, sustainability or governance, it managed to rapidly attract both academics and policy-makers. This study reviews the research papers published on smart city concept with application to European Union, and especially to the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe. The results indicate many common features of smart cities in EU, but also some peculiarities of CEE in this regard, many deriving from their socialist inheritance. Meanwhile, it can be noticed the rather incipient status of smart cities approaches, the insufficient resources allocated by local authorities, which rely extensively on EU funding, the lack of awareness from citizens and the lack of a comprehensive and structured strategic approach. In order to tackle the abovementioned issues, our paper suggests a series of measures and directions for policy-makers, local administrations and business environment.

scholarly journals Smart Cities in Turkey: Approaches, Advances and Applications with Greater Consideration for Future Urban Transport Development

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Can Bıyık
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Urban Transport ◽  
Transport Systems ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Comprehensive Survey ◽  
Future Vision

The smart city transport concept is viewed as a future vision aiming to undertake investigations on the urban planning process and to construct policy-pathways for achieving future targets. Therefore, this paper sets out three visions for the year 2035 which bring about a radical change in the level of green transport systems (often called walking, cycling, and public transport) in Turkish urban areas. A participatory visioning technique was structured according to a three-stage technique: (i) Extensive online comprehensive survey, in which potential transport measures were researched for their relevance in promoting smart transport systems in future Turkish urban areas; (ii) semi-structured interviews, where transport strategy suggestions were developed in the context of the possible imaginary urban areas and their associated contextual description of the imaginary urban areas for each vision; (iii) participatory workshops, where an innovative method was developed to explore various creative future choices and alternatives. Overall, this paper indicates that the content of the future smart transport visions was reasonable, but such visions need a considerable degree of consensus and radical approaches for tackling them. The findings offer invaluable insights to researchers inquiring about the smart transport field, and policy-makers considering applying those into practice in their local urban areas.

scholarly journals Challenges and Barriers for Net‐Zero/Positive Energy Buildings and Districts—Empirical Evidence from the Smart City Project SPARCS

Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Daria Uspenskaia ◽  
Karl Specht ◽  
Hendrik Kondziella ◽  
Thomas Bruckner
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Positive Energy ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
Multidimensional Representation

Without decarbonizing cities energy and climate objectives cannot be achieved as cities account for approximately two thirds of energy consumption and emissions. This goal of decarbonizing cities has to be facilitated by promoting net-zero/positive energy buildings and districts and replicating them, driving cities towards sustainability goals. Many projects in smart cities demonstrate novel and groundbreaking low-carbon solutions in demonstration and lighthouse projects. However, as the historical, geographic, political, social and economic context of urban areas vary greatly, it is not always easy to repeat the solution in another city or even district. It is therefore important to look for the opportunities to scale up or repeat successful pilots. The purpose of this paper is to explore common trends in technologies and replication strategies for positive energy buildings or districts in smart city projects, based on the practical experience from a case study in Leipzig—one of the lighthouse cities in the project SPARCS. One of the key findings the paper has proven is the necessity of a profound replication modelling to deepen the understanding of upscaling processes. Three models analyzed in this article are able to provide a multidimensional representation of the solution to be replicated.

scholarly journals Smart cities IOT & Digital network connectivity devices: Optimization on business in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 064-071
Author(s):  
Makeri Yakubu Ajiji ◽  
Xi’an Jiaotong Victor Chang ◽  
Targio Hashem Ibrahim Abaker ◽  
Uzorka Afam ◽  
T Cirella Giuseppe
Keyword(s):  
Internet Of Things ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
The Internet ◽  
City Development ◽  
Short Article ◽  
The Internet Of Things

Today the world is becoming connected. The number of devices that are connected are increasing day by day. Many studies reveal that about 50 billion devices would be connected by 2020 indicating that Internet of things have a very big role to play in the future to come Considering the perplexing engineering of Smart City conditions, it ought not to be failed to remember that their establishment lies in correspondence advancements that permit availability and information move between the components in Smart City conditions. Remote interchanges with their capacities speak to Smart City empowering advancements that give the open door for their fast and effective execution and extension as well. The gigantic weight towards the proficient city the board has triggered various Smart City activities by both government and private area businesses to put resources into Information and Communication Technologies to discover feasible answers for the assorted chances and difficulties (e.g., waste the executives). A few specialists have endeavored to characterize a lot of shrewd urban areas and afterward recognize openings and difficulties in building brilliant urban communities. This short article likewise expresses the progressing movement of the Internet of Things and its relationship to keen urban communities. Advancement in ICT and data sharing innovation are the drivers of keen city degree and scale. This quick development is changing brilliant city development with the beginning of the Internet of Things (IoT). This transformation additionally speaks to difficulties in building (Kehua, Li, and Fu ,Su et al.1). By knowing the attributes of specific advances, the experts will have the occasion to create proficient, practical, and adaptable Smart City frameworks by actualizing the most reasonable one.

The frontier of digital opportunity: Smart city implementation in small, rural and remote communities in Canada

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 004209801986366
Author(s):  
Zachary Spicer ◽  
Nicole Goodman ◽  
Nathan Olmstead
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
City Development ◽  
Rural And Remote ◽  
Remote Communities ◽  
Digital Divides ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Private And Public

Studies of ‘smart cities’ in Canada primarily focus on large cities but not small, rural and remote communities. As a result, we have a limited understanding of the incentive structures for smaller, remote and rural communities to pursue smart city development. This knowledge deficit is concerning, since the introduction of technology can hold a number of unique benefits for these communities, including easier connections to the rest of Canada and large urban centres, reputation building, improved service delivery and enhanced opportunities for residents. Drawing upon localised forms of knowledge creation, policy development theories, adoption and local competition literature and primary interviews with private and public officials, we examine the challenges and opportunities of ‘smart city’ implementation through case studies of small and rural municipalities in Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia and a remote community, Iqaluit, Nunavut. We find that collaboration is essential for rural and remote pursuit of smart city development and is necessary to counteract the limitations of capacity, scale and digital divides. Challenges aside, however, the primary rationale for adoption of smart city technology remains the same regardless of size: enhanced quality of life for residents and sustained community health.

scholarly journals Classifying Pathways for Smart City Development: Comparing Design, Governance and Implementation in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 4030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Negar Noori ◽  
Thomas Hoppe ◽  
Martin de Jong
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Research Question ◽  
City Development ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Design Variables ◽  
Main Driver ◽  
Information And Communication

The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) as the new paradigm of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and rapid changes in technology and urban needs urge cities around the world towards formulating smart city policies. Nevertheless, policy makers, city planners, and practitioners appear to have quite different expectations from what smart cities can offer them. This has led to the emergence of different types of smart cities and pathways of development. This paper aims to answer the research question: When comparing a selection of smart city projects, can we classify pathways for their implementation? We do this by using a cross-case research design of four cities to explore commonalities and differences in development patterns. An input-output (IO) model of smart city development is used to retrieve which design variables are at play and lead to which output. The four cases pertain to the following smart city projects: Smart Dubai, Masdar City, Barcelona Smart City, and Amsterdam Smart City. Our analysis shows that Amsterdam is based on a business-driven approach that puts innovation at its core; for Masdar, technological optimism is the main essence of the pathway; social inclusion is the focus of Barcelona Smart City; and visionary ambitious leadership is the main driver for Smart Dubai. Based on these insights, a classification for smart city development pathways is established. The results of the present study are useful to academic researchers, smart city practitioners, and policy makers.

scholarly journals CitySpeed: A Crowdsensing-Based Integrated Platform for General-Purpose Monitoring of Vehicular Speeds in Smart Cities

Smart Cities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Costa ◽  
Adson Damasceno ◽  
Ivanovitch Silva
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Software Application ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Modern Cities ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Search Filters

The development of crowdsensing-based technologies has allowed for the use of smartphones in large-scale data collection for different scopes of applications, mostly in a transparent and ubiquitous way. When concerning urban areas and smart city initiatives, the collection and further analysis of information about the highest number of vehicles is of paramount importance, potentially supporting more efficient mobility planning and management actions in modern cities. In this context, this article proposes a public general-purpose platform for acquisition and visualization of vehicular speeds, which can then be exploited by any additional application. For that, a crowdsensing-based mobile software application was developed to collect instantaneous speeds provided by smartphone GPS, formatting and distributing this information to a database system. Such historical data can then be exported or visualized through a web-based comprehensive interface, which provides valuable data when planning traffic mobility in cities; for example, indicating areas with heavier traffic over a certain time period. Therefore, allowing the use of many different search filters and supporting data delivery in the JSON format, the CitySpeed platform can provide services not supported by popular applications, such as Waze and Google Maps, and potentially assist smart city initiatives in this area.

scholarly journals Digital Twin and CyberGIS for Improving Connectivity and Measuring the Impact of Infrastructure Construction Planning in Smart Cities

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Shirowzhan ◽  
Willie Tan ◽  
Samad M. E. Sepasgozar
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Technology Development ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Smart Devices ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Infrastructure Project ◽  
Smart Technologies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Smart technologies are advancing, and smart cities can be made smarter by increasing the connectivity and interactions of humans, the environment, and smart devices. This paper discusses selective technologies that can potentially contribute to developing an intelligent environment and smarter cities. While the connectivity and efficiency of smart cities is important, the analysis of the impact of construction development and large projects in the city is crucial to decision and policy makers, before the project is approved. This raises the question of assessing the impact of a new infrastructure project on the community prior to its commencement—what type of technologies can potentially be used for creating a virtual representation of the city? How can a smart city be improved by utilizing these technologies? There are a wide range of technologies and applications available but understanding their function, interoperability, and compatibility with the community requires more discussion around system designs and architecture. These questions can be the basis of developing an agenda for further investigations. In particular, the need for advanced tools such as mobile scanners, Geospatial Artificial Intelligence, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Geospatial Augmented Reality apps, Light Detection, and Ranging in smart cities is discussed. In line with smart city technology development, this Special Issue includes eight accepted articles covering trending topics, which are briefly reviewed.

scholarly journals “Smart Is Not Smart Enough!” Anticipating Critical Raw Material Use in Smart City Concepts: The Example of Smart Grids

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 4422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin David ◽  
Florian Koch
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Grids ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Anthropogenic Sources ◽  
Smart Meters

Globally emerging smart city concepts aim to make resource production and allocation in urban areas more efficient, and thus more sustainable through new sociotechnical innovations such as smart grids, smart meters, or solar panels. While recent critiques of smart cities have focused on data security, surveillance, or the influence of corporations on urban development, especially with regard to intelligent communication technologies (ICT), issues related to the material basis of smart city technologies and the interlinked resource problems have largely been ignored in the scholarly literature and in urban planning. Such problems pertain to the provision and recovery of critical raw materials (CRM) from anthropogenic sources like scrap metal repositories, which have been intensely studied during the last few years. To address this gap in the urban planning literature, we link urban planning literatures on smart cities with literatures on CRM mining and recovery from scrap metals. We find that underestimating problems related to resource provision and recovery might lead to management and governance challenges in emerging smart cities, which also entail ethical issues. To illustrate these problems, we refer to the smart city energy domain and explore the smart city-CRM-energy nexus from the perspectives of the respective literatures. We show that CRMs are an important foundation for smart city energy applications such as energy production, energy distribution, and energy allocation. Given current trends in smart city emergence, smart city concepts may potentially foster primary extraction of CRMs, which is linked to considerable environmental and health issues. While the problems associated with primary mining have been well-explored in the literature, we also seek to shed light on the potential substitution and recovery of CRMs from anthropogenic raw material deposits as represented by installed digital smart city infrastructures. Our central finding is that the current smart city literature and contemporary urban planning do not address these issues. This leads to the paradox that smart city concepts are supporting the CRM dependencies that they should actually be seeking to overcome. Discussion on this emerging issue between academics and practitioners has nevertheless not taken place. We address these issues and make recommendations.

scholarly journals The Smart City is landing! On the geography of policy mobility

GeoScape ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-133
Author(s):  
Lucia Hýllová ◽  
Ondřej Slach
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Urban City ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Spatial Level ◽  
City Policy

Abstract The aim of this paper is to provide a geographical urban policy perspective on the strategy of Smart Cities in the specific context of Czechia. Considering that the implementation of the Smart Cities (SC) concept is still relatively young in Czechia, it is highly relevant to examine the time-space diffusion of this concept in Czechia in the geographical lens: where the first initiative to build a smart city started, when the process was started and by whom; in other words, to provide basic empirical evidence of understanding the policy mobility and implementation of smart city policy into the urban development strategies. In the first of our approach, we evaluate the implementation of the term “smart city” in strategic city documents. The next step is the analysis of the strategic urban (city) and smart city documents by distinguishing conceptually distinct pillars of the SC concept and an overview of actors and policy-makers who initiate and support individual pillars of the concept of SC in Czechia. The results of the analysis highlight the differences between the implemented SC topics into city strategies which are caused by fragmented policy mobility, its modifications and influence of key actors who have found the opportunity to participate in policy-making processes at the certain spatial level.

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