Towards Developing Sustainable Smart Cities in India

Abstract

The present paper provides a comprehensive review of frameworks for Sustainable and Smart Cities. The key findings highlight the large gap between the concept of Smart Cities and Environmental Sustainability. We recommend to improve the sustainability quotient by incorporating the use of Information and Communication Technology, thus developing Sustainable Smart Cities. In India, the stipulated guidelines regarding Smart Cities have been proposed by Ministry of Urban Development (MOUD) and 14 environmental indicators have been proposed. The extensive review of literature and the present guidelines demands an urgent need of framework for Sustainable Smart Cities in India. Moreover, the indicators selected must fulfill the criteria for smartness and sustainability. The paper concludes by suggesting a framework comprising of four steps: Indicator selection, Benchmarking, Assigning weights and development of Sustainable Smart Cities Environmental Index by the use of selected indicators. The framework developed in this order ensures the Sustainable Smart Cities appear attainable in India.

Environmentally sustainable smart cities and their converging AI, IoT, and big data technologies and solutions: an integrated approach to an extensive literature review

“…During the period 2011–2021, the increase in the quantity of the published works followed different patterns with respect to smart cities and their incorporation of the environmental objectives of sustainable development in their strategies (Al Nuaimi et al 2015 ; Batty et al 2012 ; Bibri 2018b , 2019 ; Correia and Wuenstel 2011 ; Nam and Pardo 2011 ; Neirotti et al 2014 ; Nikitin et al 2016 ). Similar patterns were followed concerning sustainable smart cities (Al-Dabbagh 2022 ; Kim et al 2021 ; Perera et al 2017 ; Saravanan and Sakthinathan 2021 ; Shruti et al 2019 ), as well as smart sustainable cities (Bibri 2018a ; D'Amico et al 2020 ; Evans et al 2019 ; Höjer and Wangel 2015 ; Kramers et al 2014 ; Martin et al 2018 ; Thornbush and Golubchikov 2019 ). As illustrated in Fig.…”

“…All in all, the period 2011–2016 marked the materialization, expansion, and adoption of different applied technology solutions in the systems and domains of smart cities in the field of environmental sustainability, paving the way for the emergence of environmentally sustainable smart cities. This roughly started from 2017 onwards (Kim et al 2021 ; Perera et al 2017 ; Saravanan and Sakthinathan 2021 ; Shruti et al 2019 ). This year marked an era where the integration of smart technologies and sustainable strategies became the mainstay of the future forms of urban development.…”

“…Still, the amalgamation of smart cities and sustainable cities is not visible in Fig. 4 because environmentally sustainable smart cities started to emerge after this period (Kim et al 2021 ; Perera et al 2017 ; Saravanan and Sakthinathan 2021 ; Shruti et al 2019 ). Toward the end of the period 1991–2015, research in the area of sustainable smart cities was still in its infancy but rapidly evolving.…”

“…The focus of this study is on the environmental dimension of sustainability in smart cities. Several studies have, in more recent years, been conducted on emerging environmentally sustainable smart cities (Al-Dabbagh 2022 ; Kim et al 2021 ; Makani et al 2022 ; Saravanan and Sakthinathan 2021 ; Shruti et al 2019 ; Singh et al 2022 ; Tripathi et al 2022 ). Indeed, they had tended to be limited until more recently compared to environmentally smart sustainable cities, which have gained popularity and become widely accepted since the mid-2010s.…”

“…In a nutshell, it is often the case that smart city initiatives are driven by economic interests at the expense of environmental (and social) concerns (Trencher 2019 ). As a result, there has recently been an upsurge in research and practice outputs on environmentally sustainable smart cities (Al-Dabbagh 2022 ; Haarstad and Wathne 2019 ; Kim et al 2021 ; Saravanan and Sakthinathan 2021 ; Shruti et al 2019 ; Tripathi et al 2022 ). This paradigm of urbanism is gaining momentum and hence evolving into a scholarly enterprise thanks to the integration of the core enabling technologies of smart cities, namely AI, IoT, Big Data, and Blockchain, as well as Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), Edge Computing, Digital Twins (DT), and cyber-physical systems.…”