Guest editors' introduction: IT in Smart Cities

Smart cities are becoming a megatrend strategy for applying ICT to improve quality of life in urban environments. Recent technological advances have accelerated smart city development, and the pervasiveness of digital sensors and control systems has enabled myriad applications. Effective smart city systems should be instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent. This special issue provides compelling examples of smart city systems that can enable the optimization or redesign of existing services and identify new value-creation opportunities.