Special Issue on “Governance of Technology in Smart Cities”

Deadline for manuscript submissions:

30 April 2021

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/Governance_of_Technology_in_Smart_Cities

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Araz Taeihagh E-Mail Website1 Website2 SciProfiles

Guest Editor

1. Policy Systems Group, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore

2. Centre for Trusted Internet and Community, National University of Singapore

Interests: governance of technology; transport policy; technology policy; public policy; sociotechnical systems; policy design, analysis, and analytics; sustainable development; smart cities, energy, and environment

Prof. Martin De Jong E-Mail Website SciProfiles
Guest Editor

1. Rotterdam School of Management & Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands
2. Institute for Global Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Interests: urban development; eco cities; inclusive cities; smart cities, city branding; public policy; governance; policy transfer

Special Issue Information

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. Araz Taeihagh
Prof. Martin de Jong
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 papers will be 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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 1900 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.

Keywords

• Smart City
• Governance
• Technology
• Governance of technology
• Built environment
• Low carbon innovation
• Infrastructure systems
• Intelligent systems
• Internet of Things
• Autonomous systems
• Artificial Intelligence

Special Issue on “Governance of Technology in Smart Cities”

Deadline for manuscript submissions:

30 April 2021

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/Governance_of_Technology_in_Smart_Cities

References:

De Jong, M.; Joss, S.; Schraven, D.; Zhan, C.; Weijnen, M. Sustainable–smart–resilient–low carbon–eco–knowledge cities; making sense of a multitude of concepts promoting sustainable urbanization. J. Clean. Prod. 2015, 109, 25–38.

Höjer, M.; Wangel, J. Smart sustainable cities: Definition and challenges. In ICT Innovations for Sustainability; Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing; Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2015; pp. 333–349.

Lim, H.S.M.; Taeihagh, A. Autonomous vehicles for smart and sustainable cities: An in-depth exploration of privacy and cybersecurity implications. Energies 2018, 11, 1062.

Lim, H. S. M., & Taeihagh, A. (Algorithmic Decision-Making in AVs: Understanding Ethical and Technical Concerns for Smart Cities. Sustainability, 2019, 11(20), 5791.

Suzuki, L. R. (2017). Smart cities IoT: Enablers and technology road map. In Smart City Networks (pp. 167–190). Springer, Cham.

Trindade, E.P.; Hinnig, M.P.F.; da Costa, E.M.; Marques, J.S.; Bastos, R.C.; Yigitcanlar, T. Sustainable development of smart cities: A systematic review of the literature. J. Open Innov. Technol. Mark. Complex. 2017, 3, 11.

Yigitcanlar, T.; Kamruzzaman, M.; Foth, M.; Sabatini-Marques, J.; da Costa, E.; Ioppolo, G. Can cities become smart without being sustainable? A systematic review of the literature. Sustain. Cities Soc. 2019, 45, 348–365.