Smart Cities – A Multidisciplinary Perspectives Model

Abstract

A prominent concern of urbanization is to address affiliated challenges and/or strive for sustainability in the long-term. Towards this end, three conspicuous city forms are being advanced in the literature body such as sustainable, smart and eco-friendly, but these disparate advances might confuse the concerned actors who are looking forward to steer urbanization through present-day realities and emerging threats. This study adopts smart form discourse as the overarching theme of its discussion. Smart cities represent a popular theme for research with extensive body of literature which is expanding over time. Conversely, this theme incorporates a wide range of (varying) perspectives which in turn give the impression of a poorly defined phenomenon. At this juncture, efforts towards consensus-building on defining smart cities need attention. To this end, this study provides an overview of such efforts in the past and features a systematic literature review to propose a comprehensive multidisciplinary perspectives model for defining smart cities. Findings of this study suggest convergence of the sustainable, smart and eco-friendly perspectives under the smart form discourse, which in turn lead to a coherent whole about propositions for urbanization. Accordingly, this study advances the notion that a city is truly smart when it can capitalize on its resources for desired ends, is risk-aware and strives for sustainability in the long-term.