What’s the definition of a “smart city” ?

The answer is, there is no universally accepted definition of a smart city. It means different things to different people. The conceptualisation of Smart City, therefore, varies from city to city and country to country, depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources and aspirations of the city residents. A smart city would have a different connotation in India than, say, Europe. Even in India, there is no one way of defining a smart city.
Let’s check out some interesting definitions we found around the net.
The Business Dictionary notes:
“A developed urban area that creates sustainable economic development and high quality of life by excelling in multiple key areas; economy, mobility, environment, people, living, and government. Excelling in these key areas can be done so through strong human capital, social capital, and/or ICT infrastructure.”
Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/smart-city.html”
Another very interesting definition (and maybe more complete) comes from Prof. h.c. Dr. Chirine Etezadzadeh, SmartCity.institute.
‘A Smart City is a nearly decarbonized, sustainable city where people act in a generalizable manner and in which urban development focuses on improving the quality of life of all city dwellers (humans and animals) and on protecting the climate and the natural environment. While strengthening its identity, the urban community strives for diversity, social cohesion and comprehensive resilience. The city is governed by an integrated municipal administration whose activities are guided by the concept of urban governance. To achieve these goals, the community implements appropriate infrastructures, interoperable technologies, the interconnection of systems, and digitization very thoughtfully without ever putting itself at the mercy of technical innovations’.
Also, some very interesting points of view, were found at centreforcities.org
Broad definitions
The UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) considers smart cities a process rather than a static outcome, in which increased citizen engagement, hard infrastructure, social capital and digital technologies make cities more liveable, resilient and better able to respond to challenges.66
The British Standards Institute (BSI) defines the term as “the effective integration of physical, digital and human systems in the built environment to deliver sustainable, prosperous and inclusive future for its citizens”.67
Data-driven definitions
IBM defines a smart city as “one that makes optimal use of all the interconnected information available today to better understand and control its operations and optimize the use of limited resources”.68
Cisco defines smart cities as those who adopt “scalable solutions that take advantage of information and communications technology (ICT) to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and enhance quality of life”.69
Citizen-focused definitions
UK citizens tend to consider a smart city as clean, friendly and has good transport connections. Other words they associate with smart cities (although less frequently) include “technology”, “connected”, “internet” and “modern”.70
According to the Manchester Digital Development agency, “a ‘smart city’ means ‘smart citizens’ — where citizens have all the information they need to make informed choices about their lifestyle, work and travel options”.71
Although there is clearly no one complete definition, there are numerous very promising concepts on the matter. And that’s maybe the most interesting part.
Bottom line is that we love cities, and we love making them smarter.
After all we are all a piece of a city, no ?
