Strategic Management of Urban Services Using Artificial Intelligence in the Development of Sustainable Smart Cities—Managerial and Legal Challenges
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for the opportunity to review this paper, which examines the European and national documents on sustainable smart cities and the implementation of artificial intelligence in urban services.
The abstract is informative and gives an insight into the text.
The introduction provides the framework for the research, explaining the purpose and main objectives of the paper. A literature review is included in the same chapter, covering the most important sources from the areas discussed, which are current and relevant. Smart and climate-neutral cities legislation and documents are discussed, for example, through the Mission on climate-neutral and smart cities initiative and financial mechanisms such as the Cohesion funds, Horizon Europe, and the Modernisation fund.
The materials and methods chapter explains how the legal, political, and strategic frameworks of the European Union, concerning the potential of cities in implementing artificial intelligence, have been analyzed. Qualitative content analysis has been applied to analyze strategic legal documents, which is a commonly used and appropriate method to scrutinize legislation documents and policies. Through the combination of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, authors built a comprehensive theoretical foundation that strengthens the validity of their findings and allows them to formulate practically feasible recommendations for urban policy and the management of digital transformation.
The results chapter is divided into subchapters, which elaborate on the legal status of AI regulation, the impact of AI regulation on sustainable smart cities, the regulation's impact of personal data protection and cybersecurity on sustainable smart cities, and the impact of the AI Act, GDPR, and NIS 2 Directive on sustainability.
In the discussion, authors sustain that legal acts provide a long-term, sustainable development of smart cities at different levels. First, they influence the environment, helping reduce congestion, energy consumption, and emissions. Then their social impact, as they strengthen the protection of rights, fairness, and trust of citizens. And finally, the economic view, they reduce compliance costs, the risk of incidents, and accelerate safe innovation.
Concluding remarks wrap up the findings of the study, offer paths for future research, and some limitations of the study. However, they did not mention the potential researchers' bias, as the subjective interpretation of the findings is always a possibility.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your very positive comment and appreciation of our work.
Finally, we would like to address our potential bias as we are fully aware that subjective interpretation of our findings is always possible.
As part of the editing, we also made other changes according to the instructions of other reviewers so that our research forms a homogeneous whole.
Sincerely, the authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis thesis focuses on the interdisciplinary intersection of the EU legal framework and AI applications in smart cities. The research topic directly addresses the key challenges in sustainable development and digital governance, with a particular emphasis on filling the practical research gaps in Central and Eastern Europe. Characterized by strong interdisciplinarity, the study holds explicit practical significance. However, as a research-oriented thesis, there remains room for improvement in the following aspects:
1. The research relies primarily on legal text analysis and secondary statistical data, lacking field-based empirical evidence from specific cities in Slovakia. This results in a largely theoretical analysis of the connection between legal provisions and management practices.
2. The analysis of the synergies among the AI Act, GDPR, and NIS2 is overly macroscopic, failing to clarify the priority hierarchy of these three regulatory instruments in specific urban services and identify clear pathways for resolving conflicts between them.
3. Insufficient consideration is given to the disparities between cities of different scales. Small and medium-sized cities in Slovakia exhibit significant gaps compared to the capital city in terms of fiscal capacity, technological reserves, and talent pool. Nevertheless, the governance recommendations proposed in the thesis do not distinguish between their respective adaptability requirements.
4. The section on financial support merely lists EU funding programs without analyzing the practical obstacles encountered during the fund application and utilization processes, nor does it mention supplementary financing models such as public-private partnerships.
5. The conclusions of the thesis are confined to applications within the EU legal system, with no discussion on the adaptability and adjustment directions for non-EU countries to draw on this legal-management framework. This limitation weakens the international promotion value of the research findings.
6. The UN survey charts cited in the thesis are only described in textual form, without attaching specific data or visualization details, making it difficult to intuitively assess the actual effectiveness of AI applications and the scale of funding gaps.
7. The discussion on social risks such as digital inequality and algorithmic discrimination remains superficial. These issues are merely mentioned in the introduction but not analyzed in combination with the specific social characteristics of Central and Eastern Europe.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your comment as well as the constructive criticism expressed in seven points.
Regarding the comments in points 1-6, we tried to include them as best and as comprehensively as possible in the revised version of the manuscript.
The comments from point 7 are important, but this work also has its limits and we will devote sufficient space to the discussion you proposed on social risks, such as digital inequality and algorithmic discrimination, in our subsequent scientific work.
As part of the revisions, we also made other changes according to the instructions of other reviewers so that our research forms a homogeneous whole.
Please find the detailed response in attachment.
With respect, the authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper lacks a coherent focus. And it may be premature.
Is the focus the EU or the Slovak Republic? There are references to the impact of European Union rules on AI and how different countries will need to react to these rules. This is common in the first two sections of the paper and with attention to Slovakia. . However, that line of discussion disappears in the latter two sections as the Results outline the current legal structure in Europe – without any mention of specifics for the Slovak Republic or any country – though that is somewhat explained later.
Even more importantly, is there enough known to make definitive statements. Early in the results section, you note, “the state of legal regulation of artificial intelligence is in its very early stages and therefore national legal orders do not yet have comprehensive legal provisions relating to artificial intelligence.”
This does rationalize why the paper shifts away from national-level discussions. But it raises the question as to whether there is enough known to undertake this research.
That being said, I can understand the value of discussing the potential impact of AI on Smart Cities within the European Union. Thus, I feel the paper needs to be refocused in that direction. The discussion points regarding the impacts specific to the Slovak Republic should be dropped. The rationale for their inclusion was never fully developed. And there is insufficient information to draw any conclusions based on (or discussion any impacts resulting from) the EU regulations.
I have also attached a copy of the manuscript with some direct in-text comments for your review.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your comment as well as constructive criticism, which helped us improve our manuscript.
We have removed the legislative focus on the Slovak Republic in accordance with your comments and left the focus only on the European Union.
Regarding the sources used dated to 2026, some scientific journals, or publishers such as Springer, publish their articles with a date for the following year and we must respect this fact.
As part of the editing, we also made other changes according to the instructions of other reviewers so that our research forms a homogeneous whole.
Please find the detailed response attached.
With respect, the authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe revised manuscript can be accepted.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2,
Thank you very much for your positive comment on our changes made to the manuscript, which we tried to implement as detailed as possible according to the reviewers' instructions and recommendations.
Best regards, Authors
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors should be commended. Their edits -- mostly additions -- have improved the paper tremendously.
Topics that were mentioned but not detailed in the original version of this paper -- such as funding mechanisms, Slovak examples, and details from the UN survey and reports -- are now fully discussed. Related to this, the general discussion and conclusions for the paper have been expanded.
There was also some better word choices and appropriate reference use (style).
About the only thing that I have an issue with at this point are the structure of the figures. I provided specific instructions for the authors on those points.
Once those are addressed, I feel the paper is publishable.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 3, Thank you very much for your second-round review and for your very positive and encouraging feedback. We greatly appreciate your recognition of the improvements made to the manuscript and your acknowledgment that the additions and revisions have substantially strengthened the paper. With regard to the only remaining comment concerning the structure of the figures, we would like to kindly clarify how this has been addressed in the revised manuscript, in line with your original instructions:- We revised the figure captions to clearly specify what each figure represents and to ensure that their purpose is immediately understandable.
- We corrected and standardized the citations and data sources associated with the figures.
- The accompanying descriptions were expanded and specified, including clearer explanations of the axes and the underlying data where applicable.
- Regarding the figure on investments and funding, we followed your suggestion that, rather than merely describing the original chart, a more appropriate and illustrative option would be to replace it. We therefore removed the original figure and introduced a pie chart that explicitly visualizes how much funding is still required after the relatively small investments currently being made. We believe this visualization more clearly communicates the funding gap and better supports the argument presented in the text.
