scholarly journals Towards an Integrated Framework to Measure Smart City Readiness: The Case of Iranian Cities

Smart Cities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 676-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Negar Noori ◽  
Martin de Jong ◽  
Thomas Hoppe
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Indicator System ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Practical Guidelines

This paper introduces an indicator system to measure and assess smart city readiness. Analyzing smart city initiatives in Iran as case studies, the theoretical framework we present reflects on how cities explore the possibility of becoming smart, and prepare themselves to begin implementing the transition towards becoming a smart city. This theoretical framework is then applied to four Iranian cities aspiring to become smart and that already possess credible smart city brands. The findings reveal that the most significant difficulty in Iran is associated with the political context. The changing urban governance model is the most important factor in Iranian smart cities’ readiness. Utilization of open data policies and data sharing, as well as making reforms in government structures are all considered a sine qua non to gain momentum. Based on the results of our empirical analysis a Theory of Change is developed to address the cities’ technological, socio-economic, and political readiness vis-à-vis the desired transition. The framework for measuring smart city readiness and the Theory of Change provide practical guidelines to developing systematic roadmaps for developing and implementing smart city policies.

Trust in open data applications through transparency

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482097970
Author(s):  
Christian Wiencierz ◽  
Marco Lünich
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Application Process ◽  
Data Application ◽  
User Data ◽  
Data Ecosystem

Open data provide great potential for society, for example, in the field of smart cities, from which all citizens might profit. The trust of these citizens is important for the integration of various data, like sensitive user data, into an open data ecosystem. In the following study, we analyzed whether transparency about the application of open data promotes trust. Furthermore, we formulated guidelines on how to create transparency regarding open data in an ethical way. Using an open-data-based fictitious smart city app, we conducted an experiment analyzing to what extent communication of the technical open data application process and the ethical self-commitment for the transparent communication of data application affect trust in the app’s provider. The results indicate that the more information users obtain regarding the use of open data, the more trustworthy they perceive the app provider to be, and the more likely they are to use the app.

scholarly journals Actually existing smart citizens: expertise and (non)participation in the making of the smart city

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Shelton ◽  
Thomas Lodato
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The World ◽  
Number Of Individuals

In response to the mounting criticism of emerging ‘smart cities’ strategies around the world, a number of individuals and institutions have attempted to pivot from discussions of smart cities towards a focus on ‘smart citizens’. While the smart citizen is most often seen as a kind of foil for those more stereotypically top-down, neoliberal, and repressive visions of the smart city that have been widely critiqued within the literature, this paper argues for an attention to the ‘actually existing smart citizen’, which plays a much messier and more ambivalent role in practice. This paper proposes the dual figures of ‘the general citizen’ and ‘the absent citizen’ as a heuristic for thinking about how the lines of inclusion and exclusion are drawn for citizens, both discursively and materially, in the actual making of the smart city. These figures are meant to highlight how the universal and unspecified figure of ‘the citizen’ is discursively deployed to justify smart city policies, while at the same time, actual citizens remain largely excluded from such decision and policy-making processes. Using a case study of Atlanta, Georgia and its ongoing smart cities initiatives, we argue that while the participation of citizens is crucial to any truly democratic mode of urban governance, the emerging discourse around the promise of smart citizenship fails to capture the realities of how citizens are actually discussed and enrolled in the making of these policies.

Smart City: An Approach from the View of Smart Urban Governance

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hung Viet NGO ◽  
◽  
Quan LE ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Effective Governance ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
Government Work ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Urban Issues ◽  
The City

The world’s population is forecasted of having 68% to be urban residents by 2050 while urbanization in the world continues to grow. Along with that phenomenon, there is a global trend towards the creation of smart cities in many countries. Looking at the overview of studies and reports on smart cities, it can be seen that the concept of “smart city” is not clearly defined. Information and communication technology have often been being recognized by the vast majority of agencies, authorities and people when thinking about smart city but the meaning of smart city goes beyond that. Smart city concept should come with the emphasizing on the role of social resources and smart urban governance in the management of urban issues. Therefore, the "smart city" label should refer to the capacity of smart people and smart officials who create smart urban governance solutions for urban problems. The autonomy in smart cities allows its members (whether individuals or the community in general) of the city to participate in governance and management of the city and become active users and that is the picture of e-democracy. E-democracy makes it easier for stakeholders to become more involved in government work and fosters effective governance by using the IT platform of smart city. This approach will be discussed more in this paper.

scholarly journals Could a Smart City Ameliorate Urban Traffic Congestion? A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on a Smart City Pilot Program in China

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2291
Author(s):  
Yuhui Guo ◽  
Zhiwei Tang ◽  
Jie Guo
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Dynamic Effect ◽  
Urban Traffic ◽  
Marginal Effect ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
City Construction

More countries and regions are joining the bandwagon of smart city construction, which is an important strategy and innovative urban governance concept to solve the problem of rapid urbanization. This paper examines whether smart city innovation is able to ameliorate the traffic congestion faced by a large number of cities. Using panel data for 187 prefecture-level cities in China from 2008 to 2017, this paper tests the effect of implementation of a smart city on urban traffic congestion with the difference-in-difference method. The results show that, firstly, the construction of smart cities have significantly reduced the degree of urban traffic congestion and improved the quality and capacity of public transport. Secondly, information technology and urban innovation are the main mechanisms for smart city implementation to improve urban traffic problems. Thirdly, the improvement effect of smart city implementation on traffic management shows an increasing marginal effect over time. By overcoming the estimation bias in previous studies, this study accurately analyzes the positive role and dynamic effect of smart city construction on traffic improvement. It augments the literature of program evaluation and assessment of smart city implementation. By examining how to improve traffic congestion, it offers some insights that could inspire governments to build smarter cities with better traffic.

scholarly journals Where’s the database in digital ethnography? Exploring database ethnography for open data research

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 598-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Burns ◽  
Grace Wark
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Data Types ◽  
Digital Ethnography ◽  
Fundamental Dimension ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Technical Specifications ◽  
The City

Contemporary cities are witnessing momentous shifts in how institutions and individuals produce and circulate data. Despite recent trends claiming that anyone can create and use data, cities remain marked by persistently uneven access and usage of digital technologies. This is the case as well within the emergent phenomenon of the ‘smart city,’ where open data are a key strategy for achieving ‘smartness,’ and increasingly constitute a fundamental dimension of urban life, governance, economic activity, and epistemology. The digital ethnography has extended traditional ethnographic research practices into such digital realms, yet its applicability within open data and smart cities is unclear. The method has tended to overlook the important roles of particular digital artifacts such as the database in structuring and producing knowledge. In this paper, we develop the database ethnography as a rich methodological resource for open data research. This approach centers the database as a key site for the production and materialization of social meaning. The database ethnography draws attention to the ways digital choices and practices—around database design, schema, data models, and so on—leave traces through time. From these traces, we may infer lessons about how phenomena come to be encoded as data and acted upon in urban contexts. Open databases are, in other words, key ways in which knowledges about the smart city are framed, delimited, and represented. More specifically, we argue that open databases limit data types, categorize and classify data to align with technical specifications, reflect the database designer’s episteme, and (re)produce conceptions of the world. We substantiate these claims through a database ethnography of the open data portal for the city of Calgary, in Western Canada.

scholarly journals Open Data Based Machine Learning Applications in Smart Cities: A Systematic Literature Review

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (23) ◽  
pp. 2997
Author(s):  
Luminita Hurbean ◽  
Doina Danaiata ◽  
Florin Militaru ◽  
Andrei-Mihail Dodea ◽  
Ana-Maria Negovan
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Data Movement ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Machine Learning Applications

Machine learning (ML) has already gained the attention of the researchers involved in smart city (SC) initiatives, along with other advanced technologies such as IoT, big data, cloud computing, or analytics. In this context, researchers also realized that data can help in making the SC happen but also, the open data movement has encouraged more research works using machine learning. Based on this line of reasoning, the aim of this paper is to conduct a systematic literature review to investigate open data-based machine learning applications in the six different areas of smart cities. The results of this research reveal that: (a) machine learning applications using open data came out in all the SC areas and specific ML techniques are discovered for each area, with deep learning and supervised learning being the first choices. (b) Open data platforms represent the most frequently used source of data. (c) The challenges associated with open data utilization vary from quality of data, to frequency of data collection, to consistency of data, and data format. Overall, the data synopsis as well as the in-depth analysis may be a valuable support and inspiration for the future smart city projects.

scholarly journals When Alphabet Inc. Plans Toronto’s Waterfront: New Post-Political Modes of Urban Governance

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constance Carr ◽  
Markus Hesse
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Civic Discourse ◽  
Public Meetings ◽  
Land Use Development ◽  
Political Economic

‘Smart cities’ has become a hegemonic concept in urban discourses, despite substantial criticism presented by scholarly research and activism. The aim of this research was to understand what happens when one of the big digital corporations enters the field of real estate and land use development and urban planning, how existing institutions respond to this, and how modes of urban governance are affected. Alphabet Inc.’s plans for Toronto’s waterfront provided insights into these questions. Our investigations traced a complex web of place-making practices that involved all levels of government, the general public, and networks of actors throughout the private sector. Methodologically, the discourse was reconstructed with local fieldwork, interviews with key actors, participating in tours and public meetings, and secondary sources. It was found that Alphabet Inc.’s plan to build a world-class digital city contained some lessons for urban studies and urban planning practice. First, Alphabet Inc.’s plans, which unfolded amidst initiatives to expand the knowledge economy, confirmed concerns that the trajectory of neoliberal, market-driven land use and speculation along the waterfront remains unchanged. Second, digital infrastructures are potentially a Trojan Horse. Third, it was seen that municipalities and their modes of urban planning are vulnerable to the political economic manoeuvrings of large corporate power. Fourth, Alphabet Inc. operates as a post-political package driven by a new coalition of politics, where the smart city is sold as a neutral technology. The controversies surrounding the project, however, stirred a civic discourse that might signal a return of the political.

How the smart governance model shapes cities? Cases from Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Demokaan Demirel
Keyword(s):  
Communication Technology ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Smart Governance ◽  
City Models

Purpose This study aims to discuss the transformational effect of the smart governance concept, which is one of the complementary elements of the smart city concept and to explain the change in governance structures according to the developments in information and communication technology. Design/methodology/approach In this study, the case study as one of the qualitative research methods is preferred, and smart city models of Barcelona, Amsterdam, Kocaeli and Ankara are examined. Findings In the research, scientific studies in the academic literature were evaluated according to the content analysis, and as a result of this analysis, the cities examined were grouped as “beginner,” “medium” and “advanced.” In the group, the characteristics of smart cities and the services they offer were taken into account. In this context, smart governance methods and their transformational effects are analyzed. Originality/value The most important contribution of this study to the literature is to identify the important characteristics of developed and successful smart city initiatives and to encourage their application to other developing world cities as a best practices model.

scholarly journals Exploring the influence of big data on city transport operations: a Markovian approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rashid Mehmood ◽  
Royston Meriton ◽  
Gary Graham ◽  
Patrick Hennelly ◽  
Mukesh Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Markov Model ◽  
Absorptive Capacity ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
City System

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge of the transformative potential of big data on city-based transport models. The central question guiding this paper is: how could big data transform smart city transport operations? In answering this question the authors present initial results from a Markov study. However the authors also suggest caution in the transformation potential of big data and highlight the risks of city and organizational adoption. A theoretical framework is presented together with an associated scenario which guides the development of a Markov model. Design/methodology/approach A model with several scenarios is developed to explore a theoretical framework focussed on matching the transport demands (of people and freight mobility) with city transport service provision using big data. This model was designed to illustrate how sharing transport load (and capacity) in a smart city can improve efficiencies in meeting demand for city services. Findings This modelling study is an initial preliminary stage of the investigation in how big data could be used to redefine and enable new operational models. The study provides new understanding about load sharing and optimization in a smart city context. Basically the authors demonstrate how big data could be used to improve transport efficiency and lower externalities in a smart city. Further how improvement could take place by having a car free city environment, autonomous vehicles and shared resource capacity among providers. Research limitations/implications The research relied on a Markov model and the numerical solution of its steady state probabilities vector to illustrate the transformation of transport operations management (OM) in the future city context. More in depth analysis and more discrete modelling are clearly needed to assist in the implementation of big data initiatives and facilitate new innovations in OM. The work complements and extends that of Setia and Patel (2013), who theoretically link together information system design to operation absorptive capacity capabilities. Practical implications The study implies that transport operations would actually need to be re-organized so as to deal with lowering CO2 footprint. The logistic aspects could be seen as a move from individual firms optimizing their own transportation supply to a shared collaborative load and resourced system. Such ideas are radical changes driven by, or leading to more decentralized rather than having centralized transport solutions (Caplice, 2013). Social implications The growth of cities and urban areas in the twenty-first century has put more pressure on resources and conditions of urban life. This paper is an initial first step in building theory, knowledge and critical understanding of the social implications being posed by the growth in cities and the role that big data and smart cities could play in developing a resilient and sustainable transport city system. Originality/value Despite the importance of OM to big data implementation, for both practitioners and researchers, we have yet to see a systematic analysis of its implementation and its absorptive capacity contribution to building capabilities, at either city system or organizational levels. As such the Markov model makes a preliminary contribution to the literature integrating big data capabilities with OM capabilities and the resulting improvements in system absorptive capacity.

scholarly journals Smart Cities, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Respect for the European Union Data Protection Rules

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Francisco Javier Durán Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
European Union ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The European Union

The importance of cities and their populations grow more and more, as well as the need to apply ICT in their management to reduce their environmental impact and improve the services they offer to their citizens. Hence the concept of smart city arises, a transformation of urban spaces that the European Union is strongly promoting which is largely based on the use of data and its treatment using Big data and Artificial Intelligence techniques based in algorithms. For the development of smart cities it is basic, from a legal point of view, EU rules about open data and the reuse of data and the reconciliation of the massive processing of citizens' data with the right to privacy, non-discrimination and protection of personal data. The use of Big data and AI needed for the development of smart city projects requires a particular respect to data protection regulations. In this sense, the research explores in depth the specific hazards of vulnerating this fundamental right in the framework of smart cities due to the use of Big Data and AI.

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