Smartness that matters: towards a comprehensive and human-centred characterisation of smart cities

Abstract

The term 'smart cities' is a widely used, but at the same time a highly fuzzy concept. The fuzziness hinders our understanding on the benefits of its adoption, and explains the existence of many relevant activities with fragmented or distorted views of what a truly smart city is. The aim of this paper is to undertake a comprehensive review of how smart cities are perceived in the literature and in the light of the findings propose a clearer definition. Overview of the key terms, concepts and definitions associated to smart cities, reported in this paper, demonstrates that the definitions found in the academic literature have limited scope, and are overly focused on strategic drivers and specific actions, instead of making explicitly the connection between the concept of smart cities and the creation of environments that promote happiness and wellbeing of their residents-which should be the main function of a city. Following the thorough review on the smart cities literature, the paper proposes a comprehensive, human-centred, and context-free definition for smart cities. This definition brings an endogenous view on smart cities in which the central element is the direct participation of local actors and stakeholders in the process of thinking, defining, planning, and executing social, technological and urban transformations in cities.

Open Innovation of James Watt and Steve Jobs: Insights for Sustainability of Economic Growth

“…Thirdly, the effect of global warming, which leads to phonological responses in the process of urbanization in the south, was analyzed in relation to the Schumpeterian dynamics of open innovation, including social innovation [9,62]. Fourthly, innovation production scheduling for customer satisfaction-based measurement was analyzed in relation to the open-innovation smart city approach [63,64]. Fifthly, the key driving forces for geo-economic relationships between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries were analyzed in relation to the virtues of variety on regional innovation system [65].…”

Open Innovation in Value Chain for Sustainability of Firms

“…Our study will particularly assist industries where protection by patents is an important aspect of their businesses. This study uses several open innovation perspectives such as the demand articulation in the open innovation paradigm; the historical review on the patterns of open innovation at the national level; the innovation capability approach; the open innovation of knowledge city; and the effect of service innovation on R&D [16,18,[26][27][28].…”

“…In addition, we should consider the relationship between direct learning and autonomous learning when developing open innovation strategies and policies. This study is based on several open innovation perspectives such as the historical review on the patterns of open innovation, the promotion of university students' collaborative skill in open innovation environment, the dynamics of open innovation, and the demand articulation in the open innovation paradigm [17,[26][27][28][29]31].…”

A Comparison of a Smart City’s Trends in Urban Planning before and after 2016 through Keyword Network Analysis

“…In addition, Information and Communication Technologies (hereafter ICT) will extensively and effectively help cities achieve a comparative edge [4, 8,9], and be used as the tools and means to develop Intelligent Transport Systems (hereafter ITS) with mobility information and the Internet of Things (hereafter IoT) [10][11][12], as well as to achieve urban policy making based on governance and open data [13][14][15]. Accordingly, in improving the urban quality of future urban areas, the term smart city is considered as an umbrella concept that includes various sub-concepts such as sustainable smart environments, smart technology, smart energy, smart transportation, smart mobility, and smart government [16][17][18][19][20][21]. The concept of the smart city has emerged over the past decade through ideas of ways to improve the functioning, efficiency, and competitiveness of cities, and solve their environmental challenges.…”