Smart cities of the future

Here we sketch the rudiments of what constitutes a smart city which we define as a city in which ICT is merged with traditional infrastructures, coordinated and integrated using new digital technologies. We first sketch our vision defining seven goals which concern: developinga new understanding of urban problems; effective and feasibleways to coordinate urban technologies; models and methods for usingurban data across spatial and temporal scales; developing new technologiesfor communication and dissemination; developing new formsof urban governance and organisation; defining critical problems relatingto cities, transport, and energy; and identifying risk, uncertainty,and hazards in the smart city. To this, we add six research challenges: to relate the infrastructure of smart cities to their operational functioning and planning through management, control and optimisation; to explore the notion of the city as a laboratory for innovation; to provide portfolios of urban simulation which inform future designs; to develop technologies that ensure equity, fairness and realise a better quality of city life; to develop technologies that ensure informed participation and create shared knowledge for democratic city governance; and to ensure greater and more effective mobility and access to opportunities for urban populations.