Foreword

ELSA ESTEVEZ; THERESA PARDO; HANS JOCHEN SCHOLL

Smart Cities and Smart Governance Towards the 22nd Century Sustainable City

Springer

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2021; p. 9 - 18

What it means to become a smart city and to engage in smart governance continues to evolve as our understanding of these concepts, in both theory and practice, evolves. Population shifts to cities are a global reality. As the world?s population continues to shift from rural to urban, the challenges cities and communities are facing are also evolving. Growth is straining physical and social infrastructures and testing the most innovative of leadership teams to continue to create sustainable value. Cities experiencing reductions in population are struggling as well to find ways to maintain the livability of their cities in the midst of shrinking resources. In parallel with this dynamic is the advent of a new era in technological innovation and new commitments to using innovations, including technological innovations, to making cities and communities ?smarter.? These phenomena taken together are providing cities with new opportunities to serve those who live and work in those cities.In the smartest cities, technological innovations are situated within a broader contextof social, economic, and policy innovations, among others. These cities are experiencing innovations in policy and management, in collaborative governance, and in technological developments that are highly interdependent and context specific.The notion of a ?smart city? as a new and promising avenue in urban government and governance is driving and informing the development? of novel and groundbreaking initiatives, such as institutional innovations that enable smart government and governance, the use of 5G technologies for safe autonomous driving, and intelligent steering of infrastructures of all kinds such as power, water, sewage, traffic, emissions, and health indicators. It is raising awareness of the need for new understanding of and models of governance, of new policy priorities, and new regulatory frameworks. It is raising awareness of the need for new understanding of innovation and how to maximize the potential of each investment in made innovation; it is raising awareness of the need for new approaches to technology adoption and use in cities and new approaches to management of those technologies in ways that ensure sustainable value creation.This edited book is a product of the Smart City Smart Government Research Practice (SCSGRP) Consortium, an international, multidisciplinary network of smart city scholars. Its 16 peer-reviewed chapters from Consortium members provide a roadmap for some of the latest concepts and practices in smart city and smart government. Taken together, the chapters provide a foundation for any effort seeking to understand, envision, and prepare for a next-generation city. They advance aglobal understanding of the nature of and need for novel concepts, theories, and frameworks, as well as innovative policies, administrative practices, and enabling technologies.This chapter is organized in six sections including this introduction section. Section ?Creating an International Research Practice Network: A Short History of the SCSGRP Consortium? provides a short history of the SCSGRP Consortium. This history highlights the strength of the digital government community as it continues to grow and adapt. Section ?A Unique Addition to the Body of Knowledge on Smart Cities? highlights the novelty of the collection and introduces the organizingframework for the chapters. Sections ?Governance?, ?Policy?, ?Innovation in Smart Cities?, and ?Technology and Management? provide summary statements about each of the chapters. Section ?Who Should Read This Book??, the final section of this introduction, makes clear the value of the book to the range of potential readers.