Elsevier

Cities

Volume 119, December 2021, 103406
Cities

Smart city research: A holistic and state-of-the-art literature review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103406Get rights and content

Highlights

  • An in-depth, systematic, and holistic review of smart city research between 2000 and 2019.

  • 191 research articles published in high-quality journals giving rise to six main foci.

  • The linkage between the six foci forming a holistic smart city ecosystem.

  • Practitioners' embrace of a holistic approach critical for smart city ecosystem to flourish.

Abstract

This literature review provides a systematic review of smart city research between 2000 and 2019. The aim of the review is to provide a comprehensive picture of the state-of-the-art of research in smart cities by addressing major issues and identifying gaps and areas for future research. The analysis of 191 publications drawn from high-quality journals and the most influential or highly cited smart city literature highlights four major challenges for small city research: (a) smart city research is often fragmented and technology-driven; (b) many studies are on the perceived benefits of smart cities and fewer on the downsides of technologies and failed projects; (c) there is a need to build new theories for smart city research; and (d) there is a lack of empirical testing of the conceptual frameworks developed in smart city research. The research insights of this literature review may encourage practitioners, including city councillors, urban planners, and business managers, to consider smart city strategies in a holistic way when building vibrant, sustainable, and resilient cities of the future.

Introduction

Although smart city research can be traced back to the 1990s, the past decade has witnessed an exponential growth and expansion of multidisciplinary fields, taking on many perspectives (Kummitha & Crutzen, 2017; Trencher, 2019). The publication volume on smart cities has more than doubled since 2009 (Ojo et al., 2015). The research usually touches on four areas: the technological aspect, including the technological infrastructure and support network for building smart cities, the sociocultural aspect, or citizen engagement, the political-institutional aspect, such as government support and policies, and the economic-business aspect, namely business models and profitability. The concept of the smart city has been seen as a strategy to tackle challenges that city governments face, such as rapid urbanisation and significant demographic changes, climate and environmental changes, economic restructuring and reforms, and digital technology disruptions (Tompson, 2017). It is generally agreed that the objective of smart cities is to enhance economic growth and social development through innovations in technology and heightened collaboration (Sarma & Sunny, 2017). The study by Caragliu et al. (2011) demonstrated positive associations between smart cities and urban wealth using urban audit data in EU27 countries.

Recent research (Trencher, 2019) indicates that the concept of smart cities has seen the emergence of its second generation, the so-called ‘smart city 2.0’. Unlike the first generation ‘smart city 1.0’, which was largely techno-economically driven and was more interested in digital technology diffusion and the economic and corporate potential of smart city projects, smart city 2.0 has shifted towards a decentralised, anthropocentric approach and ways to foster collaboration and community involvement. This shift is seen to respond to the critiques of smart city focus and strategy (Colding & Barthel, 2017; Glasmeier & Christopherson, 2015; Viitanen & Kingston, 2014). Among the critiques, some contest that the neoliberal economic interests in smart city planning and strategies are prevailing at the expense of environmental and social concerns (Cardullo & Kitchin, 2019; Hollands, 2015; Kitchin, 2015). The study by Hollands (2008) questioned critically the underlying assumptions and labelling process of the concept of smart cities and called for a more progressive and inclusive smart city. Others point out that the top-down tendency of many smart cities to privilege the introduction of corporation-serving technologies is the key cause of many smart city project failures, because of a lack of understanding of what the citizens want (Carrasco-Sáez et al., 2017; McFarlane & Söderström, 2017; Trencher & Karvonen, 2018; Zuzul, 2019).

Corresponding to the dynamic smart city research are standalone smart city literature reviews. To get a fair glimpse of the latest developments in smart city literature reviews, we performed a random search in high-quality journals relevant to the study fields and found eleven literature reviews published between 2015 and 2019. Among these eleven literature reviews, five concentrated on smart city conceptualisation, four on smart city governance or planning, and two took a holistic approach without any particular focus.

Five of the literature reviews that we found dealt with what a smart city is. After reviewing 78 academic papers, Yigitcanlar et al. (2018) found that the extant literature has not been able to adequately conceptualise what a smart city is meant to be, and most of the existing conceptual frameworks are limited in advancing our understanding of the smart city concept. In a more recent literature review of 38 studies published up to June 2018, Yigitcanlar et al. (2019) reiterate their previous findings and argue that cities cannot be truly smart without being sustainable. Likewise, the literature review by Kummitha and Crutzen (2017) categorised 161 articles into four schools of thought using a framework called 3RC, which means restrictive school, reflective school, rationalistic school and critical school. The review found that conflicting views exist as to what a ‘real’ smart city is, and its implications for building creative and inclusive urban space. Taking a bibliometric methodology approach, De Jong et al. (2015) analysed 1430 articles retrieved from the Scopus database, focusing on how the twelve most frequent city categories relating to smart cities are conceptualised individually and in relation to one another in the academic literature. The review finds that the ‘sustainable city’ is ‘the largest and most interconnected node, linked closely to the ‘eco-city’ and ‘green city’ concepts’ and there is a need for rigor and nuance in the use of these terms (De Jong et al., 2015. p.25). The review of Camero and Alba (2019) focused on the smart city concept and covered the largest volume of publications among the nine literature reviews, totalling around 2700 works published up to 2017. However, it included only the publications in the computer science and IT literature indexed by JCR. Using data analytical techniques, the review found no consensus on defining the concept of smart cities.

Four of the literature reviews found in our search focused largely on smart city governance or planning. After analysing a corpus of 51 articles in the topic area, Meijer and Bolívar (2016) argue for a comprehensive perspective on current smart urban governance research and redefining the concept of smart city governance. Likewise, the literature review of Ojo et al. (2015) was conducted with a particular interest in smart city governance issues, although the sources of literature reviewed extended to multiple disciplinary research on smart cities. Their literature review maps the trend and key themes of a total of 170 works published up to 2013, and identifies the gap between current smart city research and well-established disciplines such as urban planning and, more recently, urban informatics. Ruhlandt (2018) studied 62 articles with a focus on the conceptualisation of smart city governance. This literature review finds that extant research on smart city governance appears to ‘be even more ambiguous and disintegrated than that carried out on smart cities, more broadly’ (Ruhlandt, 2018, p.11). The literature review by Lim et al. (2019) focused on urban-planning-related studies. The review sampled 53 articles published between 2005 and 2017 and analysed the positive and negative results of smart city development. The review found 12 positive and 4 negative results. However, most of the results were hypothetical, suggesting a need for empirical research and evidence.

Among the eleven literature reviews we found, only two took a holistic approach, not focusing on any particular aspect of smart cities or field of study. One is the literature review by Mora et al. (2017). The review covered 1067 documents published between 1992 and 2012. By taking a bibliometric study, Mora et al. (2017) suggest that smart city research is centred largely around what a smart city should be like, and, as a result, no consensus has been reached. Drawing on the same database as their first literature review, Mora et al. (2019) conducted a second bibliometric study and found that there is a ‘deep-rooted division’ in the existing smart city research which is represented by sets of dichotomies, such as: (1) technology-led or holistic strategy; (2) double or quadruple-helix model of collaboration; (3) top-down or bottom-up approach; and (4) mono-dimensional or integrated intervention logic. However, their literature review was limited to a bibliometric methodology with a focus on mapping and quantitatively analysing the patterns and trends of literature growth (e.g. authors and publications), citations, and geographic coverage of authors and organisations of the publications reviewed. By doing so, the literature review did not look in depth at the contents and themes of the literature studied. The literature review by Bibri and Krogstie (2017) is also holistic and multidisciplinary, covering a wide range of research outputs published between 2005 and 2016. It reviewed various existing sustainable city models and smart city approaches and identified a number of research gaps. Among the gaps, the most prominent one was the lack of a theoretically sound and practically convincing model for strategic smart sustainable urban planning and development. The review proposed a holistic approach to smart city research with a particular emphasis on cross-disciplinary issues.

The eleven literature reviews on smart city research indicate the dynamic nature and rapid growth of smart city research. But we also see the limitations and the need for further literature review for three reasons. First, as acknowledged by the literature reviews we have discussed above, smart city research is fragmented, divergent and takes on many perspectives. Only two out of the eleven literature reviews that we found take a holistic approach. There is a clear need for more holistic literature reviews to capture the overall picture and the essence of smart city research. Second, in-depth insight into the current research and practices about smart cities is vital for both researchers and practitioners. Based on our review, few have been able to capture both the scope and the depth of the prominent areas of smart city research. Third, the most recent literature review on smart cities that we found covers the literature only up to June 2018 (Yigitcanlar et al., 2019). Our literature review seeks to address these gaps with the objectives of investigating three research questions below:

  • 1.

    What are the noticeable developments in smart city research?

  • 2.

    What are the major focus areas of smart city research and what has been achieved in these areas?

  • 3.

    What are the most important research areas that have been overlooked but need to be developed for future smart city research as well as for practitioners?

Following this introduction, we first outline the methods that we use to conduct the literature search and categorise and analyse the data collected through the search. After that, we present and discuss the findings of our exploration. We then identify the research gaps and limitations and propose research questions aimed at guiding future research on smart cities based on our findings. We then concluded the paper by outlining the contributions of this study.

Section snippets

Keywords search and database

Smart city is a fuzzy concept, with variant conceptualisations such as ‘intelligent city’ and ‘digital city’ commonly encountered (Albino et al., 2015). A smart city can therefore be seen as an amorphous term that cannot be cast in the rigidity of a one-size-fits-all definition (O'Grady & O'Hare, 2012). This realisation has underpinned the choice of search terms that form the basis of our literature review. The search terms ‘smart city’, ‘smart cities’, ‘intelligent city’, ‘intelligent cities’,

Overview of smart city research development

This section seeks to answer our first research question, focusing on the noticeable developments in smart city research. When analysing the year of the publications, we find that only 23 ‘early’ smart city research journal articles (pre-2010) were published in journals ranked 2* or above, while there is a clear upward trend post-2010, and a significant growth between 2018 and 2019. Fig. 4 illustrates the trend based on the articles reviewed. The sharp rise in 2018 and 2019 smart city research

Discussion

In this section, we seek to address our third question: ‘What are the most important research areas that have been overlooked but are needed to be developed for future smart city research as well as for practitioners?’

Conclusion

This literature review makes four contributions to both smart city research and practice. First, our literature review takes a holistic approach and provides smart city researchers with an in-depth insight into the current smart city research from a multidisciplinary perspective (e.g. technology, governance, strategy, entrepreneurship and innovation, supply chains, etc.). Second, the areas we have identified for future research would inform researchers to position their research with

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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