Smart City Strategy Articles

Over the past years, the smart city concept has reached a state of mainstream acknowledgment throughout the world. However, several important aspects are subject to constant debate:

• What is the best or a suitable smart city definition?
• Does the smart city concept apply to cities only, or does it include rural or smaller communities?
• Is the smart city concept technology- or human-centric?
• What are the key success factors of leading smart cities?
• What are the strategic governance approaches?
• What can be derived from best practices in smart cities development?

In our review on becoming a smart city, we will cover all of these topics that relate to the smart city evolution and defining the term smart city from a practical perspective.

Driven by urban strategists, scholars, companies and other institutions, we witness a constant debate on what a smart city is. There are so many existing definitions and synonyms such as "connected city", "resilient city", "senseable city", "intelligent community", "digital city", "digital community" or even "smart village". This debate poses the question on what exactly smart cities stand for.

Creating a unique identity and vision

While it is generally accepted that there are different generations of smart cities (as discussed in "TOWARDS A NEW PARADIGM OF THE SMART CITY"), we believe it is important for each city or community to create a unique identity of their smart city or smart community vision.