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Part 3: Open Government and TransformationInternational audienceThis study presents the first results of an analysis primarily based on semi-structured interviews with government officials and managers who are responsible for smart city initiatives in four North American cities—Philadelphia and Seattle in the United States, Quebec City in Canada, and Mexico City in Mexico. With the reference to the Smart City Initiatives Framework that we suggested in our previous research, this study aims to build a new understanding of smart city initiatives. Main findings are categorized into eight aspects including technology, management and organization, policy context, governance, people and communities, economy, built infrastructure, and natural environment

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In 2015, the United Nations adopted an ambitious development agenda composed of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), which are to be reached by 2030. Beyond SDG 11 concerning the development of sustainable cities, many of the SDGs target activities falling within the responsibility of local governments. Thus, cities will play a leading role in the achievement of these goals, and we argue that the information systems (IS) community must be an active partner in these efforts. This paper aims to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs by developing a conceptual model to explain the role of IS in building smart sustainable cities and providing a framework of action for IS researchers and city managers. To this end, we conduct grounded theory studies of two green IS used by an internationally recognized smart city to manage water quality and green space. Based on these findings, we articulate a model explaining how an integrated information ecosystem enables the interactions between three interrelated spheres – administrative, political and sustainability – to support the development of smart sustainable cities. Moving from theory to practice, we use two real‐world scenarios to demonstrate the applicability of the model. Finally, we define an action framework outlining key actions for cities and suggest corresponding questions for future research. Beyond a simple call‐to‐action, this work provides a much‐needed foundation for future research and practice leading to a sustainable future for all.

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Governments are increasingly engaging private sector organizations, civil society and citizens to tackle complex policy challenges through some forms of networked governance arrangements. These governance networks which in general facilitate flexibility, speed and innovation in government, when compared with traditional governance forms, are necessary to meaningfully govern smart societies characterised by many programs spanning policy domains and levels of governments. This article presents a conceptual framework for governance networks and applies the framework to describe and analyse six case studies presented as part of the Track on "Governing through Networks" of the International Conference on the Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2013) Conference. Insights from the analysis of these cases somewhat suggest that: 1) governance networks are still largely steered by government; 2) efficacy of governance networks is contingent on citizen's inclusion in the governance networks; and 3) mobile social media platforms could constitute a key infrastructure for enabling citizen participation in these governance networks. Important policy and research challenges in this domain include how to effectively motivate citizen participation in these networks and align the divergent views of the different actors collaborating in the network.

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