Untangling Smart Cities

Untangling Smart Cities: From Theory to Practice helps all key stakeholders understand the complex and often conflicting nature of smart city research, offering valuable insights for designing and implementing strategies to improve the smart city decision-making processes. The book drives the reader to a better theoretical and practical comprehension of smart city development, beginning with a thorough and systematic analysis of the research literature published to date. The book provides an in-depth understanding of the entire smart city knowledge domain, revealing a deeply rooted division in its cognitive-epistemological structure as identified by bibliometric insights. Untangling Smart Cities fills the knowledge gap between theory and practice using case study research, with empirical evidence drawn from cities considered leaders in innovative smart city practices. An invaluable contribution to the growing scientific literature, Untangling Smart Cities provides an accurate and deep understanding of the strategic principles driving smart city development. Provides clarity on the smart city concepts and strategies Provides a systematic literature analysis on the state-of-the-art of Smart Cities research using bibliometrics combined with practical application to guide smart systems implementation Offers a comprehensive and systematic analysis of Smart Cities research produced during its first three decades, driven by statistical analysis techniques Generates a strong connection between theory and practice by providing the scientific knowledge necessary to approach the complex nature of Smart Cities sourced from the analysis of actual best practices Documents five main development pathways for smart cities development, serving the needs of city managers and policy makers with concrete advice and guidance

Untangling Smart Cities: From Utopian Dreams to Innovation Systems for a Technology-Enabled Urban Sustainability helps all key stakeholders understand the complex and often conflicting nature of smart city research, offering valuable insights for designing and implementing strategies to improve the smart city decision-making processes. The book drives the reader to a better theoretical and practical comprehension of smart city development, beginning with a thorough and systematic analysis of the research literature published to date. It addition, it provides an in-depth understanding of the entire smart city knowledge domain, revealing a deeply rooted division in its cognitive-epistemological structure as identified by bibliometric insights. Users will find a book that fills the knowledge gap between theory and practice using case study research and empirical evidence drawn from cities considered leaders in innovative smart city practices. Provides clarity on smart city concepts and strategies Presents a systematic literature analysis on the state-of-the-art of smart cities' research using bibliometrics combined with practical applications Offers a comprehensive and systematic analysis of smart cities research produced during its first three decades Generates a strong connection between theory and practice by providing the scientific knowledge necessary to approach the complex nature of smart cities Documents five main development pathways for smart cities development, serving the needs of city managers and policymakers with concrete advice and guidance

WINNER OF THE 2022 WRITERS' TRUST BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICY WINNER OF FOR THE PATTIS FAMILY FOUNDATION GLOBAL CITIES BOOK AWARD Is the ‘smart city’ the utopia we’ve been waiting for? The promise of the so-called smart city has been at the forefront of urban planning and development since the early 2010s, and the tech industry that supplies smart city software and hardware is now worth hundreds of billions a year. But the ideas and approaches underpinning smart city tech raise tough and important questions about the future of urban communities, surveillance, automation, and public participation. The smart city era, moreover, belongs firmly in a longer historical narrative about cities — one defined by utopian ideologies, architectural visions, and technological fantasies. Smart streetlights, water and air quality tracking, autonomous vehicles: with examples from all over the world, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Portland, and Chicago, Dream States unpacks the world of smart city tech, but also situates this important shift in city-building into a broader story about why we still dream about perfect places. "John Lorinc’s incisive analysis in Dream States reminds us that the search for urban utopia is not new. Throughout the book, Lorinc underscores the fact that a gamut of urban innovations – from smart city megaprojects to e-government to pandemic preparedness tools – only provide promise when scrutinized together with the political, economic, social, and physical complexities of urban life." – Shauna Brail, University of Toronto "Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias takes us on a fascinating journey across world cities to show how technology has shaped them in the past and how smart city technology will reshape them in the future. This book is essential reading for policy makers, researchers, and practitioners interested in understanding the opportunities and challenges of smart city technology and what it means for city building." – Enid Slack, University of Toronto School of Cities "“Utopia may be the oldest grift in the city-building business, but Dream States shows that technology is a timeless tool for turning the most ordinary of urban dreams – clean air and water, safe streets, and decent homes – into reality. As digital dilettantes try to sell us on a software overhaul, John Lorinc provides us an indispensable and flawless guide to the must-haves and never-agains of the smart city.” – Anthony Townsend, Urbanist in Residence, Cornell Tech, author of Smart Cities

Smart Cities and the UN's SDGs explores how smart cities initiatives intersect with the global goal of making urbanization inclusive, resilient, and sustainable. Topics explored include digital governance, e-democracy, health care access, public-private partnerships, well-being, and more. Examining smart cities concepts, tools, strategies, and obstacles and their applicability to sustainability, the book exposes key structural problems that cities face and how the imperative of sustainability can bypass them. It shows how smart city technological innovation can boost citizens' well-being, serving as a key reference for those seeking to make sense of the issues and challenges of smart cities and SDGs. Includes numerous case studies from around the world Features interdisciplinary insights from academic and practitioner experts Offers an extensive literature review

"Smart cities" use surveillance, big data processing and interactive technologies to reshape urban life. Transit riders can see the bus coming on a map on their phones. Cities can measure and analyze the garbage collected from every household. Businesses can track individuals' movements and precisely target advertisements. Google's failed Sidewalk Labs proposal in Toronto, which drew sharp criticism over surveillance and privacy concerns, is just one of the many smart city projects which have been proposed or are underway in Canada. Iqaluit, Edmonton, Guelph, Montreal, Toronto and other cities and towns are all grappling with how to use these technologies. Some cities have quickly partnered with digital giants like Uber, Bell and IBM. Others have kept their distance. Big tech companies are hard at work recruiting customers and shaping – sometimes making – public policy on data collection and privacy. Smart Cities for Canada: Promise and Perils is the first book on smart cities in Canada. In this collection, experts from across the country investigate what this new approach means for the problems cities face, and expose the larger issues about urban planning and democracy raised by smart city technology. This is a valuable, timely, independent‐minded book for Canadians.

Rapid urbanization has led to many problems in cities, including climate change, deteriorating infrastructure, disorganized labor forces, and diminishing resources. This book presents a well-grounded vision for the kind of future city we need to live in by encapsulating the most salient and practical implementations of the many responsibilities and functions that characterize the modern metropolis. Furthermore, this book uses the idea of sustainability to show and analyze many theories and approaches to handling the topic of modern sustainable smart cities, as well as the effects they have on human life and the natural environment through sustainable development objectives and aims supported by the United Nations.

This book provides information on data-driven infrastructure design, analytical approaches, and technological solutions with case studies for smart cities. This book aims to attract works on multidisciplinary research spanning across the computer science and engineering, environmental studies, services, urban planning and development, social sciences and industrial engineering on technologies, case studies, novel approaches, and visionary ideas related to data-driven innovative solutions and big data-powered applications to cope with the real world challenges for building smart cities.

Examining the changing nature of cities in the face of smart technology, this book studies key new challenges and capabilities defined by the Internet of Things, data science, blockchain and artificial intelligence. It argues that using algorithmic logic alone for automation and optimisation in modern smart cities is not sufficient, and analyses the importance of integrating this with strong participatory governance and digital platforms for community action.