Cyber–Physical Systems in Smart Cities – Mastering Technological, Economic, and Social Challenges

The “smart city” notion has become synonymous with visions of future urban development, which is marked by the widespread digitization of services. A major objective of smart cities is to achieve triple sustainability in social, economic, and environmental issues. This chapter intends to broaden the conceptual and analytical views, as is required for effective policy making, by employing the perspectives of economic geography to cyber‐physical system (CPS)‐supported smart city development. It then highlights social challenges of CPS‐based smart city development that relate to aspects of acceptability, qualification, and adaptation. The chapter further explores how visions of smart city developments could potentially profit from using CPS applications in order to enhance system efficiency. Finally, it explains how the process fields of CPS‐enhanced smart city formation are embedded in wider economic contexts on a regional, national, and global scale, and it also raises issues of social acceptability.