Inclusive Smart Cities

Dear Colleagues,

Today, due to the widening of the wealth gap, the intensification of climate change, and the acceleration of both population aging and population growth, our cities are being tested by multiple economic, environmental, and social challenges including but not limited to urban sprawl, urban gentrification, housing crisis, tent city, urban flooding, urban heat island, environmental migrants, urban slums, tent cities, urban aging, and empty nesters. In the past few years, the COVID-19 pandemic and regional conflicts have undoubtedly exacerbated these problems. Our cities, to a large extent, are becoming more and more exclusive.

In recent years, on the other hand, on top of new concepts and strategies of urban planning and design, emerging technologies such as big data, cloud computing, Internet of things (IoT), advanced communication technologies (5G/6G), artificial intelligence, robotics, and augmented reality have undoubtedly provided infinite possibilities for the development of smart cities, and also brought opportunities to solve the problems that plague cities. Furthermore, in accordance with the political-societal systems, the whole value chain for building and maintaining our cities can be optimized for higher return on investment by design for manufacturing and assembly, and on-site automation in order to achieve better affordability and accessibility for more dwellers.

Therefore, this Special Issue aims to attract relevant high-quality research articles on the design, construction, and maintenance processes of inclusive smart cities, or smart cities for all, using technology that are friendly to all city dwellers, especially those that are vulnerable, regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity, education, wealth, and social status. The scope of potential submissions can be on the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of smart cities. Articles from either a technological or a social perspective are both welcome. The topics of interest for this Special Issue include but are not limited to the following:

• 15-minute city;
• adaptability;
• age-friendly city;
• augmented urban spaces;
• automation;
• availability;
• e-governance;
• floating city;
• inclusive smart city;
• low-cost smart city;
• open data governance;
• slum regeneration;
• smart urban mobility;
• smart urbanism;
• smart village;
• smart waste management;
• standardization of smart city;
• sustainable city;
• urban accessibility;
• urban digital twins;
• urban energy harvesting;
• urban engineering;
• urban farming;
• urban manufacturing;
• urban resilience;
• urban robotics;
• vertical city;
• vertical urbanism.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Bock
Dr. Rongbo Hu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Smart Cities is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.