scholarly journals Smart City Puebla: measuring smartness

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. e15793
Author(s):  
Stephanie Garcidueñas Nieto ◽  
Pablo Collazzo Yelpo ◽  
Katya Pérez Guzmán

Objective of the study: this empirical study revisits the meaning and scope of the ‘smart city’ concept, measuring ‘smartness’ in an emerging market setting.Methodology / approach: a data reduction exercise is conducted through a principal component analysis of 22 smart city variables and a two-step cluster analysis for the 217 municipalities of the State of Puebla (Mexico), so as to identify the defining challenges to ‘smartness’ in a developing economy city.Originality / Relevance: the prevailing models that measure urban ‘smartness’, notably Giffinger’s and Cities in Motion, arguably miss to capture the socioeconomic challenges of cities in a developing market context.Main results: two distinctive factors emerge from the data reduction exercise, namely ‘marginalization’, referring to social and economic inequalities, and ‘access to services’, particularly public health and education, to define the challenges emerging market cities would need to address in their path to ‘smartness’.Theoretical / methodological contributions: we introduce a revised approach to measure city ‘smartness’, claiming that access to public services (education and health) helps reduce social inequality and marginalization, which are core indicators to redefine smart cities in emerging markets.Social / management contributions: even if the analysis is carried out on data from a single region, our findings could be a meaningful input to a more generalizable model to measure city ‘smartness’ in emerging markets, with implications to multiple stakeholders, particularly policy-makers, suggesting basic inequalities and access to education and health services should be addressed, before attempting to improve traditional smart city indicators. 

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 4030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Negar Noori ◽  
Thomas Hoppe ◽  
Martin de Jong

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Shirowzhan ◽  
Willie Tan ◽  
Samad M. E. Sepasgozar

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.


GeoScape ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-133
Author(s):  
Lucia Hýllová ◽  
Ondřej Slach

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.


Author(s):  
R. G. G. Alam ◽  
H. Ibrahim

Abstract. The development of information and communication technology has spread throughout the world. Many benefits can be obtained, but the risks cannot be avoided. Communication grows massively in cyberspace and thus poses a security threat to smart city services. This threat can be overcome through national spectrum by implementing cyberspace security strategies in developing smart cities. This paper describes cybersecurity strategies performed in supporting the development of smart cities. Security strategies are developed based on factors related to the perspective of three pillars of smart city implementation models, namely technology, people, and institutions. Factors related to cybersecurity from these three pillars are explored from the experience of policy makers, actors, and users of smart city services, and evaluated using the opinions of cybersecurity experts and smart cities. This strategy will be a standard document that will be used as a reference in carrying out all processes related to information security in supporting the development of smart cities.


Author(s):  
Bogdan-Constantin Ibănescu ◽  
Alexandru Bănică ◽  
Mihail Eva ◽  
Alexandra Cehan

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.


Smart Cities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeshna Jessie Dabeedooal ◽  
Vickramsingh Dindoyal ◽  
Zaheer Allam ◽  
David S. Jones

Mauritius, a small island developing state (SIDS), has an approved government-issued smart city framework geared at facilitating the development of smart cities through an application of Internet of things. In an attempt to move away from privately-operated urban developments in the form of newly built smart cities, an alternate framework has been proposed by Allam and Newman to redefine this timely concept for existing cities with the main dimensions being metabolism, culture, and governance. This new framework focuses on liveability and sustainability that builds on the cultural and historical dimensions of existing cities. This study adds to the redefined smart city paradigm by proposing a new pillar in the form of smart tourism for the city of Port Louis, Mauritius. This paper reviews models of smart tourism and explores how this can be grafted to the Allam and Newman’s smart city model. The findings of this study seek to inform policy makers on alternate and the more relevant economic potential of smart tourism for the city of Port Louis.


Smart Cities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaheer Allam ◽  
Peter Newman

The Smart City concept is still evolving and can be viewed as a branding exercise by big corporations, which is why the concept is not being used by the United Nations (U.N.). Smart Cities tend to represent the information, communication, and technological (ICT) industry alone without considering the values and cultural and historical profiles that some cities hold as legacies. However, the technology inherent in Smart Cities promises efficiencies and options that could allow cities to be more “inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable” as required by the U.N. agenda including cultural heritage. There is a notable lack of Smart City application to cultural and historical urban fabrics. Instead, the modernist new town approach has emerged under this new rubric leading to many problems such as urban decay and unsustainable car dependence. This study therefore presents a review of the literature on the nature, challenges, and opportunities of Smart Cities. A new Smart Cities framework is proposed based on the dimensions of culture, metabolism, and governance. These findings seek to inform policy makers of an alternative viewpoint on the Smart City paradigm, which focuses on urban outcomes rather than technology in isolation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Emilio Branchi ◽  
Carlos Fernández-Valdivielso ◽  
Ignacio Raúl Matías

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for better analyzing the utility and impact of new technologies on smart cities. The authors have designed a tool that will evaluate new technologies according to a three-pronged scoring system that considers the impact on physical space, environmental issues and city residents. The purpose of this tool is to be used by city planners as part of a strategic approach to the implementation of a smart city initiative in order to reduce unnecessary public spending and ensure the optimal allocation of city resources. Design/methodology/approach – The information and communication technologies that manage and transform twenty-first century cities must be reviewed, analyzing their impact on new social behaviors that shape the spaces and means of communication, developing a new methodology and setting the basis for an analysis matrix to score the different and technologies that affect a smart city environment. Research limitations/implications – Traditional technological scenarios have been challenged, and smart cities have become the center of urban competitiveness. A lack of clarity has been detected in the way of describing what smart cities are, and the authors try to establish a methodology for urban policy makers to do so. As a dynamic process that affects several aspects, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed solution further. Practical implications – After a review of the state-of-the-art, the authors found that there are no existing systems for assessing smart city strategies regarding new, evolving technologies. The methodology attempts to design a simple tool to bring urban developers and policy makers closer to the technology and to have an instrument with which to compare different alternatives before choosing one. Social implications – Helped by new technologies, citizens are the ones who have the power to define new urban scenarios. For this reason the methodology the authors propose must have citizens and their needs as the ultimate reference, considering all the social, physical and environmental effects on people before selecting a new technology for urban strategies. Originality/value – This paper fulfills an identified need to study how new technologies could affect urban scenarios before being applied, developing an analysis system in the form of a matrix to be used by urban planners and policy makers to decide how best to use them.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (24) ◽  
pp. 3080
Author(s):  
Reem Al Sharif ◽  
Shaligram Pokharel

Smart cities support the enhancement of the quality of life of their residents, for which the use of a robust integrated platform of information and communication technology is required. However, not all cities have similar technology infrastructure and a similar understanding of the quality of life. Therefore, holistic planning, resource support, security, continuous updates, and dynamic operational enhancements should be considered while planning smart cities. However, a smart city could be vulnerable to security threats and a loss of personal or classified information due to the complexity of technology integration. Therefore, understanding and assessing different risks and embedding risk management mechanisms would be required to minimize vulnerability exposure in smart cities. This paper proposes a risk assessment method using the Dempster–Shafer theory for smart city planning. The Dempster–Shafer theory is used here to analyze the risks perceptions of experts. The principal component analysis method is used to analyze the data obtained from risk assessment. The application of this method is determined through a smart city test case in Qatar.


2021 ◽  
Vol 301 ◽  
pp. 05004
Author(s):  
Justas Streimikis ◽  
Evgeniy Kislitsyn ◽  
Nadezhda Surnina ◽  
Viktor Gorodnichev

This article focuses on defining the integrated platform for managing information in smart cities. We look into the smart city platforms that are increasingly used in today’s cities all around the world. Smart city platforms can be deployed on private, public or hybrid clouds, remote servers or onsite. By definition, a smart city platform integrates many different functional areas of the smart city in a single environment. The Smart city platform offers integrated functionality to coordinate intelligent city data, applications, solutions and services at one or more operational levels between multiple stakeholders with integrated functionality. By monitoring and analysing the use of urban assets, the government can distribute them to improve operational efficiency. The platform provides middleware and operational functionality across multiple software and hardware, integrates multiple communication protocols, and provides latent and free solutions for smart cities. Managing the huge amounts of data generated by IoT-based sensors and systems is a main challenge facing end users and providers. We show that smart city platforms serve to standardize data and information across many silo systems. It is demonstrated that they provide a common mechanism for visualizing and managing data to optimize the entire urban operation.


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