Sustainable Smart Cities and Smart Villages

Dear Colleagues,

Smart cities research has established itself as one of the most vibrant of inter- and multidisciplinary study today. Research in this field is driven by the realization that advances in sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT), on the one hand, create the opportunity to alleviate several challenges that progressive urbanization creates, and on the other hand, may substantially contribute to well-being of cities’ residents. Certainly, critical voices exist and these should be noted. Smart villages remain a niche concept, the related debate is still nascent, and the research agenda still open. Similarly, as in the case of the smart cities research, the smart villages debate is driven by the question of how and in which ways ICT can improve well-being in rural areas. Even if wise substantial differences between both strands of research exist, the broadly conceived imperative of sustainability is common in both debates. By bringing together these two debates, the objective of this Topic is twofold, i.e., to encourage research on smart cities and smart villages, respectively, and, while doing so, to reflect on the possibility of building bridges between the two debates.

The Editors of this Topic encourage submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following topics and issues:

• Smart cities/villages research: new concepts, new approaches, new developments;
• Smart cities/villages services and applications: supply and demand, issues, developments;
• Smart cities/villages: regulatory frameworks and the delivery of the best quality of services and applications;
• Smart cities/villages and migration: issues, challenges, opportunities;
• Smart cities: democracy, governance, representation, participation;
• Smart villages: issues of governability, growth, and development;
• Smart cities/villages: leisure, tourism, art, culture, and heritage;
• Smart cities/villages: public policy considerations;
• Smart cities/villages: infrastructure development and utility;
• Smart cities/villages: managerial approaches;
• Smart cities/villages: energy sustainability;
• Smart cities/villages: policies, policymaking, data-driven decision-making;
• Smart cities/villages: specificity and applicability to the Global South and Global North contexts;
• Smart cities/villages in times Covid-19 and beyond;
• Exploring smart cities/villages' resilience through service theories and other approaches.

Prof. Dr. Anna Visvizi
Dr. Wadee Alhalabi
Dr. Shahira Assem Abdel Razek
Dr. Paolo Gerli
Dr. Orlando Troisi
Topic Editors