Smart Cities: Issues and Challenges

Mapping Political, Social and Economic Risks and Threats

Anna Visvizi, Miltiadis Lytras

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780128166390
• eBook ISBN: 9780128166482
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Smart Cities: Issues and Challenges: Mapping Political, Social and Economic Risks and Threats serves as a primer on smart cities, providing readers with no prior knowledge on smart cities with an understanding of the current smart cities debates. Gathering cutting-edge research and insights from academics, practitioners and policymakers around the globe, it identifies and discusses the nascent threats and challenges contemporary urban areas face, highlighting the drivers and ways of navigating these issues in an effective manner. Uniquely providing a blend of conceptual academic analysis with empirical insights, the book produces policy recommendations that boost urban sustainability and resilience.- Combines conceptual academic approaches with empirically-driven insights and best practices- Offers new approaches and arguments from inter and multi-disciplinary perspectives- Provides foundational knowledge and comparative insight from global case-studies that enable critical reflection and operationalization- Generates policy recommendations that pave the way to debate and case-based planning

Chapter 1

Smart cities research and debate

what is in there?

Anna Visvizi ^{1 , 2} , and Miltiadis D. Lytras ^{1 , 3 1} School of Business & Economics, Deree College – The American College of Greece, Athens, Greece ² Effat College of Business, Effat University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ³ College of Engineering, Effat University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Several developments have led to an increased interest, and a resultant debate, on the possible use of information and communication technology in cities and urban space. As the debate gains on momentum, a great number of new insights populate the field, thus ostensibly redefining it and delineating its disciplinary boundaries anew. Interestingly, if smart cities are the buzzword of the popular debate today, sustainability has become the keyword defining the thrust of that debate. This volume recognizes the scope, the breadth, and the illuminating insights that scholars active in the field have brought to the debate over the past decades, thereby adding to our knowledge and understanding of the variety of issues and topics pertinent to smart cities. Against this backdrop, this chapter dwells on the conceptual caveats inherent in smart cities research and outlines the scope of the book.

Keywords

Conceptual frameworks; Interdisciplinary research agenda; Multidisciplinary research agenda; Smart city; Sustainability

1. 1. Introduction
2. 2. Smart cities: definitional caveats
3. 3. About the book and the conceptual framework it adopts
4. 4. Review of the chapters' content
5. References

1. Introduction

Several developments have led to an increased interest, and a resultant debate, on the possible use of information and communication technology (ICT) in cities and urban space. As the debate gains on momentum, a great number of new insights populate the field, thus ostensibly redefining it and delineating its disciplinary boundaries anew. Apart from scholarly research on smart cities, the topic has been skillfully taken up by think tanks and consulting firms, making smart cities one of the key topics discussed in fancy settings and environments. Interestingly, if smart cities are the buzzword of the popular debate today, sustainability has become the keyword defining the thrust of that debate (Lytras et al., 2019). The smart cities–sustainability nexus that this debate embodies has been driven by a number of factors, the validity and relevance of which have been recognized, among others, in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Agenda, especially Goal 11 “Sustainable cities and communities” (UN, 2015).

Following in the footsteps outlined in the 1976 United Nations Conference on Human Settlements and Sustainable Urban Development, Goal 11 highlights that it is necessary to think about urban space in a holistic manner. That is, our thinking about cities and urban space should be founded on the recognition of a dynamic nature of cities and urban space, their evolution, and hence the necessity to make both cities and urban space resilient to risks, threats, and other kinds of challenges (Klopp, Petretta, 2017; Lützkendorf, Balouktsi, 2017) and sustainable. Increasingly, the debate on smart cities, more or less explicitly, endorses the normative and prescriptive components that the SDG11 entails. As a result, the specific to that debate focus on the value added of ICT-enhanced tools and applications is seen as a function of the broader concept of sustainability. Not surprisingly, therefore, given the centrality of policy-making considerations geared toward sustainability in contemporary political discourse, having endorsed the imperative of sustainability, the debate on smart cities too has turned into one of the most topical fields of academic research and popular debate.

Apart from the bigger narrative on sustainability, the exponential growth in interest in smart cities has also been triggered by such factors as increasing pace of urbanization, growing awareness of the complex challenges that cities face, followed by a reconceptualization of cities as hubs of human interaction, and indeed, centers of authority. Liberalization of trade, increasing labor mobility, increased dynamic of cluster development, and a tendency to decentralize state administration, reinforce the process of cities gradually turning into centers of authority. This is followed by “the sinking in” of the understanding that the fourth Industrial Revolution is taking place here and now, and so influences every aspect of our lives. The debate and policy-making considerations that follow endorse the recognition of the value added of ICT as an enabling and mitigating factor in city space. In other words, today, as never before, the time is ripe not only to discuss smart cities as a piece and parcel of the broader process of socioeconomic growth and development but also to devise strategies that will make cities sustainable.

In this view, also the notion of sustainability requires a few words of clarification. It is to stress that sustainability is not only about environmental sustainability but also about establishing a socioeconomic equilibrium allowing individuals, societies, and current and future generations of cities' inhabitants to grow and excel, to exercise civil liberties, to live well, and to prosper. Topics pertinent to these considerations have been long present in the debate on smart cities (Vanolo, 2016; Mattern, 2017; Deakin, 2013). Other old–new topics step in the debate too, including, for instance, the imperatives of ethically and socially sensitive ways of using technological advances in city space (Visvizi et al., 2017; Mazzucelli and Visvizi, 2017). Another issue that appears prominently in the debate is the very accessibility and usability of ICT-enhanced services (Visvizi et al., 2019) seen as a measure of cities being inclusive and democratic (Lytras and Visvizi, 2018; Barns, 2018). In brief, several avenues of research in smart cities debate can be identified (Bibri, 2019), and, as several authors emphasize, research on smart cities requires inter- and multidisciplinary approaches if the plethora of topics and issues that are pertinent to the field are to be effectively addressed (Kitchin, 2015, 2016 Visvizi and Lytras, 2018a).

The interesting point that needs to be made here is that even if over the past decade the debate on smart cities developed exponentially, respective arguments and conversations run largely in parallel to each other, i.e., they were frequently confined to very specific fields/disciplines of research effectively preempting dialog and cross-fertilization among diverse fields of research. Today, drawing on work and publications pertaining to urban geography, urban studies, architecture, engineering, computer science, but also sociology, political science, communication studies, and many more (Datta, 2015; Marvin et al., 2015; Karvonen et al., 2018; Wiig and Wyly, 2016; Cardoullo and Kitchin, 2018 ), inter- and multidisciplinary approaches are not only well-received but, indeed, encouraged. Clearly, only by drawing from each other's work will be able to deepen our understanding of what the concept of smart cities entails, to enhance the existing conceptual tools and frameworks, and thereby more effectively infuse the policy-making process with valid research findings.

This volume recognizes the scope, the breadth, and the illuminating insights that scholars active in the field have brought to the debate over the past decades, thereby adding to our knowledge and understanding of the variety of issues and topics pertinent to smart cities. Featuring contributions of scholars active in fields as diverse as sociology, political science, international relations, geography, urban studies, architecture, computer science, and engineering, this volume brings selected strands of the debate on smart cities together to showcase the broad conceptual and empirical framework against which the smart cities debate unfolds today. In this sense, this volume seeks to add to the ongoing debate and, by reaching diverse stakeholders, including also those otherwise not really involved with the topic, steer their interest and encourage them to meaningfully join the debate. The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows. First, the caveats related to the definition of smart cities are discussed briefly. Then, a few points on the conceptual framework underpinning the discussion in this volume are made. In the third move, an overview of key topics and issues addressed in this book is presented along with a more detailed description of chapters included in this book. Then conclusions follow.

2. Smart cities: definitional caveats

Even if the academic debate on smart cities matures and ever more sophisticated insights into the sphere of the technically possible in urban space are proposed, for the preponderant part of city dwellers, smart solutions remain a misunderstood, unrecognized, or feared product of “science fiction” (Lytras and Visvizi, 2018). In other words, considerable gap exists between what citizens expect vis-à-vis ICT-enhanced solution in city space and, importantly, what they are able to use. From a different angle, many smart services have been embedded in the city space so seamlessly that their existence has become a part of the daily routine for masses. In this sense, many aspects of what would be referred to as smart city applications or solutions remains underrecognized for the very users of those solutions (Lytras et al., 2019). In brief, as the public debate is filled with references to smart cities, frequently, confusion steps in as to what exactly the concept “smart city” implies, what is at stake, and how it fits in the broader framework of debates unfolding in other fields and disciplines. This volume seeks to navigate this issue and make the concept of smart cities more approachable to those who have had the opportunity to engage in its thorough study.

Several conceptual and methodological issues have to be clarified before outlining this volume's content, including the very definition of smart city, and indeed other concepts that tend to be used—wrongly so—interchangeably in the debate. One of such concepts is the concept of megacity. Frequently conflated, there is a significant qualitative difference between megacity and smart city, with each of them triggering quite distant research questions and topics (Visvizi and Lytras, 2018a). A megacity can be defined as an “urban agglomeration with a total population of 10 million people or greater, consisting of a continuous built-up area that encompasses one or more city centers and suburban areas, economically and functionally linked to those centers” (Safarik et al., 2016). It can be argued that megacities research originates from very pragmatic considerations related to spatial considerations, urban infrastructure planning, including urban design and resilience of urban space, and related questions of governance and sustainability. The key cognitive lens applied in the debate on megacities are defined by the questions of population size, geographical location, and exposure to risks and threats, including those related to geographical location and so natura...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgment
• Chapter 1. Smart cities research and debate: what is in there?
• Part 1. Managing public space: democracy, participation, well-being
• Part 2. Safety, security, resilience
• Part 3. Smart cities’ sustainability
• Part 4. Global contexts
• Index