Smart city governance in Mexico: reflections from a case study

International Journal of Sustainable Construction Engineering and Technology, 2021

The world’s population is forecasted of having 68% to be urban residents by 2050 while urbanization in the world continues to grow. Along with that phenomenon, there is a global trend towards the creation of smart cities in many countries. Looking at the overview of studies and reports on smart cities, it can be seen that the concept of “smart city” is not clearly defined. Information and communication technology have often been being recognized by the vast majority of agencies, authorities and people when thinking about smart city but the meaning of smart city goes beyond that. Smart city concept should come with the emphasizing on the role of social resources and smart urban governance in the management of urban issues. Therefore, the "smart city" label should refer to the capacity of smart people and smart officials who create smart urban governance solutions for urban problems. The autonomy in smart cities allows its members (whether individuals or the community in gen...

Information polity, 2019

Over the past decade, two dominant perspectives prevail on the governance of smart cities. From a public administration perspective, 'smart governance' emphasizes the importance of technology-based tools in transforming government institutions. From an urban planning perspective, the governance of smart cities focuses on the institution interaction with spatial challenges. Within this backdrop, these perspectives can learn from each other to arrive at new transformative smart governance approaches. This paper proposes a specific urban planning perspective on smart governance, labeled as 'smart urban governance'. It is aiming specifically at the transformative governance of the socio-spatial context of urban challenges associated to smart cities via technological innovations and opening up new possibilities for city transformation. To this end, the meaning of smart urban governance is conceptualized from three dimensions: purposes, components and contexts. Based on a systematic literature review, these three dimensions are integrated into one holistic framework. A case illustration was applied to demonstrate the use and advantages of this framework. From this, this paper concludes that smart urban governance, by explicitly taking into account the specific socio-spatial context, can improve our understanding of the urban challenges associated to smart cities and contribute to its appropriate and 'smart' governance. Keywords: Smart cities, smart governance, ICT, an urban planning perspective, transformation of cities Key points for practitioners:-Two dominant perspectives prevail on the present governance of smart cities-a public administration perspective and an urban planning perspective.-The identified shortfalls along with the context ignorance within the two present dominant perspectives have impeded the transformation of cities.-The paper argues that the mentioned perspectives can learn from each other to arrive at new transformative smart governance approaches.-This paper proposes a specific urban planning perspective on smart governance, labeled as 'smart urban governance'.-Smart urban governance intends a symbiosis between the 'smart' from smart governance literature and the 'urban' from urban governance literature, as a means to 'smartening' urban governance as well as drawing attention to the importance of socio-spatial transformations in shaping smart governance.

Central and Eastern European eDem and eGov days, 2020

Many smart city publications talk of a need for new models of partnership working: public-private partnerships that create a shared vision for the smart city, bringing together leaders from city government, national government, health services, universities, business, social enterprises and the community sector. But as it is already known, crucial to the acceptance and success of smart cities is the involvement of citizens. Cities in which citizens take a central role are creating public-privatepeople partnerships. There's no clear beginning or end to the process of becoming smart: the road to smart cities is a transition process that can take 10, 15 or even 20 years. Today's decisions on city infrastructures and services will have consequences for the future generations who live in the city. There needs to be a huge cultural shift away from working in silos and towards integration across organizations, cities and countries. Smart city partnerships need to bring people together but they also need to be a vehicle that commissions and manages smart infrastructure and technology, dealing with issues such as finance, privacy and security. This paper will discuss about this issue providing examples of success stories found in Europe and across the world.

Proceedings of the 25th International Conference Companion on World Wide Web - WWW '16 Companion, 2016

Smart City is an emerging and multidisciplinary domain. It has been recently defined as innovation, not necessarily but mainly through information and communications technologies (ICT), which enhance urban life in terms of people, living, economy, mobility and governance. Smart government is also an emerging topic, which attracts increasing attention from scholars who work in public administration, political and information sciences. There is no widely accepted definition for smart government, but it appears to be the next step of e-government with the use of technology and innovation by governments for better performance. However, it is not clear whether these two terms coexist or concern different domains. The aim of this paper is to investigate the term smart government and to clarify its meaning in relationship to the smart city. In this respect this paper performed a comprehensive literature review analysis and concluded that smart government is shown not to be synonymous with smart city. Our findings show that smart city has a dimension of smart government, and smart government uses smart city as an area of practice. The authors conclude that smart city is complimentary, part of larger smart government movement.

In a nut shell, smart cities carry a vision of an urban space that is meticulously planned, technologically integrated, ecologically friendly, and to attract more investments in technology and physical infrastructure. It is technology business driven boasting of “smart communities.” Reinventing the government movement also boasts of its ability to give the government cost effectiveness, more professional and smarter government, and more dynamic government. The impact has been, a dysfunctional government, a bankrupt government, poor capacity government, wide spread corruption scandals, social and economic exclusion and marginalization. Employment becomes scarce and more and more labor oriented – education and knowledge expertise are considered irrelevant as services are being emphasized more on the use of technology or technology friendly without human provision or without human interaction. Greater reliance on technology causes the disappearing of human values. Though 31 cities of seven countries have adopted smart city concept, the establishment of this type of cities bring a new challenge for the government in terms of public financing, politics, social and economic policies, urban planning and provision, and its impact on human population. It also brings a new challenge for the government in terms of its roles and functions, and the impact of this establishment on the mental, attitude, and behavior of the society. Although the smart cities concept is meant for technologically the cities, but similar to the term quality of life, the term of smart cities encompasses different aspects of lives. This paper will discuss the roles and functions of the government in theory and its application, the impact of the development of the smart cities on public finance, the economic, social and welfare the humanity, and the different aspects of lives that contribute to the establishment of smart communities.

Journal of Telecommunications System & Management

Ever since the industrial revolution, humans have been urbanizing at an exponential rate. There are 100s of thousands of new dwellings are being built every day. As of 2015, there is about 52% of the world population living in cities. Every week, there are at least a million new people moving into cities, worldwide. By 2050, the United Nations (UN) is expecting that 6 billion people will be living in cities; furthermore, cities consume about 70% of the global energy use; as a result, the strain on resources and the magnitude of challenges that cities face is phenomenal. It is imperative to develop solutions that improve the liveability of cities while vividly reducing resource consumption. There is a need for a city-wide smart, secure, and resilient transformation. Technological transformation is one option that governments can rely on to mitigate many of the risks and challenges they are facing. Local governments in general and the Chief Information Officers (CIO) in particular, have many objectives to achieve successful electronic government, such as studying the community, engaging the residents, allowing access to high-speed Internet, and adopting an open government philosophy. In short, government officials must develop a road map for building smart cities, in order to leverage and integrate technologies to create real economic opportunities and save lives.

CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, 2022

The smart city is a modern idea focused around urban governance carried out with the use of the latest technical and technological achievements (including information technology) that allow to raise the standard of living. The approach is associated with the widely understood economy of resources that fall within the decision-making powers of urban authorities. Consequently, this means the reduction of costs related to the functioning of the city as a whole as well as costs incurred by city users. The paper aims to identify spheres and areas where it is possible to use instruments fully corresponding to the assumptions of the concept of smart governance. Considerations will refer to selected areas of influence of urban authorities in which the use of modern techniques and technologies is a prerequisite for progress in modern times. These areas cover: administration, energy and waste management, urban space, environment, transport and public transportation. The analysis will be strengthened by indicating specific solutions in the framework of the smart concept.

Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence, 2017

In almost every forum around the world, country leaders are discussing the necessity of creating smart cities. However, even the term "smart city" is diffuse nowadays. Some countries want their cities to become smarter and others want to create smart cities from scratch. Several mappings have been developed around the world to locate the smartest cities. We believe that, since Latin American and Caribbean countries are exploring in the creation of smart cities, a proper mapping and plan is necessary to assure that the efforts in creating smart cities are not a waste. Using a literature review and a survey, we try to determine the state of smart cities development and its technical readiness in the Region.

Foresight and STI Governance

I n light of the increasingly complex socioeconomic processes and changes, today's cities as complex systems will not be able to respond to numerous challenges unless they possess a governance model that can flexibly adjust to shifting external conditions. In this regard, there is growing demand for innovative management tools combining solutions from different fields. The 'smart city' concept is one of the most sought after. This article analyses the advantages of this concept, the necessary conditions, as well as the obstacles for implementing it. We consider the challenges related to becoming a 'smart city' , the different ways a smart city comes into being, evaluate the future for smart city solutions, as well as assess the current willingness of administrations of Russian cities to adopt this model. From our analysis, we conclude that 'smart city' strategies continue in many cases to rely on a narrow, 'technological' approach. Such an approach presupposes that the availability alone of smart infrastructure can solve

Adeola Adeyinka Stanley, 2017

In 2030, the population of the world is expected to reach 8.6billion, 9.8 billion in 2050 and surpass 11.2billion in 2100. However, it is estimated that six out of the ten largest countries (i.e. China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and United States of America) will exceeds 300million by 2050. With this predictions Nigeria will become the third most populous country in the world surpassing the United States of America. (United Nations, 2015). This demographic changes will affects cities as they will become more complex for a single authority to maintain and manage due to economic competitiveness, quality of life, environmental protection, reliable power, accessible healthcare; making the term 'city' very difficult to define. By 2035 findings has it that most humanity will dwell in Favela(slums)due to rural exodus that will strike the world even as it is witness today, where people migrate from rural area to urban centre's in search of livelihood. Triggering the demand for basic amenities, projecting to zenith crime and other social vices. This paper highlights the future of our cities, smart city ideology, the meaning of smart city, theoretical framework, the applicability of smart city initiatives and our tools for smart city planning as town planners.