A bibliometric evaluation and critical review of the smart city concept – making a case for social equity

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to promote the idea that social equity is a significant objective that needs to be achieved to attain a smart city and further reveal the current research focus of smart city in relation to social equity. Also, it will propose determinants of social equity for smart city development. Design/methodology/approach The first part of this study was conducted by reviewing ten existing smart city models and assessing their elements, in a bid to find a relationship between the existing smart city models and social equity. These models were sorts from scholarly publications such as books, journals and other related articles sourced from google scholar and Scopus database. To give more credence to this study, a second aspect of this study was necessary; this was conducted using a bibliometric approach, and the data was gathered from the Scopus database. Keywords such as “smart-city” OR “Digital-city” OR “Intelligent-city” OR “Computer-city” OR “Technology-city” AND “Social-equity” were used for article extraction. VOSview was used to analyse the bibliographic data obtained. Findings This research revealed that studies that relate, link or discuss the idea that social equity is a significant objective that needs to be achieved to attain a smart city are low considering that only 48 articles were extracted, and most of the studies did not specifically focus on social equity in smart city development. Further findings revealed that the ten reviewed smart city models never linked or discussed the idea of social equity in smart city development. Additionally, this study revealed that emerging countries aiming to develop smart cities, particularly in Africa, are not paying much attention to the importance of creating social equity policies to attain smart cities. Practical implications This study revealed a knowledge gap in the study of smart cities in developing countries. Governments of various developing countries can implement the ideas from this study by creating and applying social equity policies to drive sustainable development, which will positively influence smart city attainment. Originality/value The contribution of this study is that it promotes the idea that social equity is a significant objective that needs to be achieved to attain smart cities. This study’s further originality and value lie in adopting a bibliometric approach of analysis that has not been used in this form in previous studies.

Digital accessibility of smart cities - tourism for all and reducing inequalities: Tourism Agenda 2030

“…Accessibility factors that demonstrated a lower percentage of compliance with international criteria within the literature included perceptible and robust (Euse ´bio et al, 2020;Silveiro et al, 2019;Teixeira et al, 2021). These findings were consistent with our research for robust, although operable also achieved a lower percentage of compliance Okafor's (2022) findings, equal access to technology would be considered the only viable approach for the creation of an inclusive smart city.…”

The government of Indonesia’s smart city development: Fiscal capacity, cognitive models in decision making, excessive caution about future accrual of benefits, and null regulatory leadership

“…This article demonstrates that many smart city developments are possibly stalled (i.e., not immediately realised) due to the GoI's clandestine leadership supported by a lack of knowledge informing the transformation process (Israilidis et al, 2021;Pratama, 2021;Okafor et al, 2022). This clandestine leadership is the first uniqueness of this study, with evidence of the various smart cities being developed differently in various regions.…”

“…On the other hand, the regions' double-loop learnings allow its chiefs to compare their projects to normative denominators or other smart city developers (Mohamed et al, 2006;Lerro and Schiuma, 2009;Offenhuber, 2019). Finally, the authors believe that double-loop learning ascertains the regional chiefs' institutional efficacy due to feedback regarding improved decision-making (Kayaga et al, 2013;Kusumastuti et al, 2022;Okafor et al, 2022). Moreover, the quality of smart cities built by the regions would be better due to their chiefs countering the production progress.…”

Pandemic management, citizens and the Indian Smart cities: Reflections from the right to the smart city and the digital divide

“…Thus, pandemic IT initiatives within the smart cities catered to the selective few, i.e., the digitally included active, upwardly mobile citizens with available and accessible economic, social, cultural, and technological capital. This selective catering of smart city IT initiatives advances the knowledge of the interaction between the smart cities and their citizens, emphasizing the social sustainability of the smart cities as other scholars have also emphasized (see Nam & Pardo, 2011 ; Praharaj et al, 2017 ; Praharaj et al, 2018 ; Ahad et al, 2020 ; Han & Kim, 2021 ; Moreno et al, 2021 ; Okafor et al, 2022 ; Nagarale & Telang, 2022 ), but contextualizing it within the pandemic.…”