Governance of Technology in Smart Cities

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past decade, amidst the acceleration of competition among cities for businesses and talent, which has resulted in a focus on economics and provision of engineering solutions, the concept of “Smart Cities” has emerged, in which the emphasis is on the use of innovative information and communication technology to serve the needs of people (De Jong et al. 2015, Trindade et al. 2017; Lim and Taeihagh 2019). The push for “Smart Cities” is driven by the development of smart infrastructure in the cities thought the use of connected sensors and devices that can collect, store, and transmit data through the internet, which allows different devices to interact and synchronize their actions in different domains, such as electricity distribution (smart grid), transportation (smart mobility), and community developments (Höjer and Wangel 2015, Suziki 2017). Due to its emphasis on connectivity as the main source of growth, the ‘smart city’ tends to shift attention away from environmental considerations and more towards infrastructure and information use (Lim and Taeihagh 2018). However, scholars argue that a city can only be smart if technological solutions are utilized in a holistic fashion addressing social and environmental sustainability issues and not just focusing on economic efficiency (Lim and Taeihagh 2018, 2019; Yigitcanlar et al. 2019).

One key aspect is to establish governance frameworks for technologies (e.g., autonomous vehicles, smart health solutions, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and robotics, 3D printing, sharing economy, blockchain, virtual reality, and augmented reality) that would guide the development of these Smart Cities. In this Special Issue, we are especially interested in articles that explore governance challenges of technologies that are being adopted in smart cities and solutions to them. Key issues to be covered in the Special Issue include:

• The new risks, uncertainties and unintended consequences of the adoption of emerging and/or disruptive technologies (e.g., autonomous vehicles, smart health solutions, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and robotics, 3D printing, sharing economy, blockchain, virtual reality and augmented reality) in Smart City developments to our social, economic, environmental, and political systems;
• The opportunities and challenges for the governance of technologies that can be adopted in smart cities and smart city developments as a whole;
• The diverse types of regulatory and governance responses to address the risks posed by novel technologies and the Smart City developments;
• The impacts of these rapid technological adoptions and smart city developments on stakeholders and society as a whole;
• The pros and cons of the heavy involvements of the private sector (particularly tech companies) in these smart city developments;
•  The consequences of these developments for concepts such as inequality, discrimination, bias, accountability, transparency, responsibility, and liability;
• And finally, how the hype around smart cities matches the reality of smart city developments now and in the coming decades.

It is these and similar questions which a new Special Issue of Sustainability is aiming to address. Araz Taeihagh (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore) and Martin de Jong (Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam) invite their peers around the world to contribute high-quality articles on these pertinent topics.

Prof. Dr. Ir. Araz Taeihagh
Prof. Dr. Martin de Jong
Guest Editors

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