Sustainable Smart Cities and Smart Villages, 2nd Volume

Dear Colleagues,

Smart cities remain one of the most vibrant of inter- and multidisciplinary fields of research and debate today. Research in this field is driven by the realization that advances in sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT), on one hand, create the opportunity to alleviate several challenges that progressive urbanization creates, and on the other hand, may substantially contribute to wellbeing 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 wellbeing in rural areas. Even if 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: governance, public management, value co-creation, community development;
• Smart cities/villages: regulatory frameworks and the delivery of the best quality of services and applications;
• Smart cities: democracy, governance, representation, participation;
• Smart villages: issues of governability, growth, and development;
• Smart cities/villages: leisure, tourism, art, culture, and cultural heritage;
• Smart cities/villages: public policy perspective;
• Smart cities/villages and migration: issues, challenges, opportunities;
• Smart cities/villages: infrastructure development, utility, built environment and land use;
• Smart cities/villages: mobility, accessibility, quality of life, performance, wellbeing;
• Smart cities/villages: societal concerns, including embracing disabilities, diversity, age related needs and challenges, as well as promoting equality in opportunity, and inclusion;
• Smart cities/villages: enhancing performance through virtual-reality- and machine-learning-based approaches and solutions;
• Smart cities/villages: energy sustainability, including energy communities, prosumers, other;
• Smart cities/villages: policies, policymaking, data-driven decision making;
• Smart cities/villages: specificity and applicability to the Global South and Global North contexts.

Prof. Dr. Anna Visvizi
Dr. Wadee Alhalabi
Dr. Mara Grimaldi
Dr. Orlando Troisi
Topic Editors