Smart Ideas for Smart City Development

Abstract

The concept of smart city is a burgeoning strategy that is fast becoming popular as a strategy that will be able to mitigate the problems emanating from the uncontrolled population growth and urbanization. Academicians have turned their attention to the smart city concept, but an in-depth understanding of the concept is still required. There is a dearth of information on the concept and hence the phenomenon is not well understood. This study, therefore, aims to fill the gap in literature regarding smart cities and propose a framework for grasping the concept further. Based on exploratory studies on the concept of smart cities, this chapter focusses on nine key factors that will form the framework for smart cities and the smart cities initiatives. These nine critical factors include the management, organization governance, technology, people, policy, economy, natural environment, built environment, and the implications of big data on smart cities. These factors provide the basis for the development of an integrative framework that can be employed to examine the manner in which governments around the world, including Kenya, are envisioning smart city initiatives. The framework provides the agendas and directions for smart approaches that can be implemented in cities and a road map for the attainment of smart cities.