The Indian perspective of smart cities

Cities have been the engines of economic growth since the industrial revolution. While effective at catalyzing prosperity, city development has not always been “smart” sacrificing human health, for instance, for greater productivity. Smart cities are now emerging. Leading smart cities such as Stockholm, Barcelona, New York, Vienna, and Toronto have incorporated efficiency into buildings, infrastructure, and social spaces using technological advancements, increasing the livability, workability, and sustainability of these places. Inspired by these smart city developments, India is planning to build 100 smart cities in various parts of the country. This research presents insight into how smart cities are likely to evolve in India, by studying the priority areas considered in planning smart cities. It presents both the citizen and city official perspectives of smart cities. The results indicate that citizens value living, followed by mobility, environment, governance, and economy, whereas the city officials prioritize living, followed by environment, economy, mobility, and governance. This research further evaluated the titles of planned smart city projects to determine how many of them can be categorized as smart. The analysis also revealed how city size influences the priorities of citizens and city officials, indicating that the notion of a smart city in India may be context specific.