This book seeks to contribute to prior research facing the discussion about public value creation in Smart Cities and the role of governments. In the early 21st century, the rapid transition to a highly urbanized population has made societies and their governments around the world to be meeting unprecedented challenges regarding key themes such as sustainability, new governance models and the creation of networks. Also, cities today face increasing challenges when it comes to providing advanced (digital) services to their constituency. The use of information and communication technologies (usually ICTs) and data is thought to rationalize and improve government and have the potential to transform governance and organizational issues. These questions link up to the ever-evolving concept of Smart Cities. In fact, the rise of the Smart City and Smart City thinking is a direct response to such challenges, as well as providing a means of integrating fast evolving technology into our living environment. This focus on the public value creation in Smart Cities could be of interest for academics, researchers, policy-makers, public managers, international organizations and technical experts involved in and responsible for the governance, development and design of Smart Cities

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 18th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Government, EGOV 2019, held in San Benedetto del Tronto, Italy, in September 2019, in conjunction with the IFIP WG 8.5 IFIP International Conference on Electronic Participation (ePart 2019) and the International Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government Conference (CeDEM 2019). The 27 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions. The papers are clustered under the following topical sections: E-Government Foundations; E-Government Services and Open Government; Open Data: Social and Technical Aspects; AI, Data Analytics and Automated Decision Making; and Smart Cities.

Chapters 6, 24, 26 and 36 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The Routledge Companion to Smart Cities explores the question of what it means for a city to be ‘smart’, raises some of the tensions emerging in smart city developments and considers the implications for future ways of inhabiting and understanding the urban condition. The volume draws together a critical and cross-disciplinary overview of the emerging topic of smart cities and explores it from a range of theoretical and empirical viewpoints. This timely book brings together key thinkers and projects from a wide range of fields and perspectives into one volume to provide a valuable resource that would enable the reader to take their own critical position within the topic. To situate the topic of the smart city for the reader and establish key concepts, the volume sets out the various interpretations and aspects of what constitutes and defines smart cities. It investigates and considers the range of factors that shape the characteristics of smart cities and draws together different disciplinary perspectives. The consideration of what shapes the smart city is explored through discussing three broad ‘parts’ – issues of governance, the nature of urban development and how visions are realised – and includes chapters that draw on empirical studies to frame the discussion with an understanding not just of the nature of the smart city but also how it is studied, understood and reflected upon. The Companion will appeal to academics and advanced undergraduates and postgraduates from across many disciplines including Urban Studies, Geography, Urban Planning, Sociology and Architecture, by providing state of the art reviews of key themes by leading scholars in the field, arranged under clearly themed sections.

This book is based on the work of the YEEES Research Centre, an international network of scientists from partner universities in Germany, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa. It presents inter- and transdisciplinary research that explores different ways of understanding resilience, an essential characteristic for systems, organizations and people – providing them with strength in the face of attacks and challenges, and both enabling and fostering constant adaptation and improvement. Building resilience to face today’s ever-changing societal and environmental realities requires unbiased research activities that transcend the borders of countries and academic disciplines alike. The research addressed in this book, thus, is multidisciplinary and includes contributions to areas such as sustainable agriculture, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and smart communities, as well as groundbreaking work on skills development and ICT education. Highlighting the variety of research activities and their outcomes, this book offers a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners in the fields of sustainable resilience development.

Examining the changing nature of cities in the face of smart technology, this book studies key new challenges and capabilities defined by the Internet of Things, data science, blockchain and artificial intelligence. It argues that using algorithmic logic alone for automation and optimisation in modern smart cities is not sufficient, and analyses the importance of integrating this with strong participatory governance and digital platforms for community action.

Internet and World Wide Web platforms, big data analytics, software, social media and civic technologies allow for the creation of smart ecosystems in which connected intelligence emerges and disruptive social and eco-innovation flourishes. This book focuses on three grand challenges that matter for any territory, no matter where it is located: (i) smart growth, a path that more and more cities, regions and countries are adopting having realised the unlimited potential of growth that is based on knowledge, innovation and digital technologies; (ii) safety and security, which is a pre-requisite for quality of life in a world of intense social, natural and technological threats; and (iii) sustainability, use of renewable energy, protection of living ecosystems, addressing climate change and global warming in a period of rapid urbanisation that makes established sustainability models and planning patterns quickly obsolete. The core argument of the book is that problem-solving and novel solutions to these grand challenges emerge in smart ecosystems through connected intelligence. It is the broadest form of intelligence that combines capabilities from heterogeneous actors (humans, organisations, machines) and propel problem-solving through externalities and resource agglomeration, user engagement and collaboration, awareness and behaviour change. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of urban and regional studies, innovation studies, economic geography and urban planning, as well as urban policy makers.