مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد چشم انداز “شهر هوشمند” در کشورهای GCC – امرالد 2018

Introduction

As urbanization is growing across the globe, the number of cities is increasing and they are encountering many challenges from within and without. To counter the challenges, there is a need for laying down an IT-focused urban management of cities, thereby laying down the foundation of “smart cities” (Buckman et al., 2014). This would facilitate in meeting the needs of the residents in an efficient and effective manner and would improve the quality of life of the residents. It has been underscored that with the establishment of “smart cities”, the economic growth of the region improves and there are opportunities for sustainable development. Conceding that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region is facing the oil prices crisis presently, it is posited that one of the channels of economic diversification could be through digitalization of economy. A “smart city” is one which is “intelligent” (Jussawallaa et al., 1992), “sustainable” (Camagnia et al., 1998; Stratigea et al., 2015), “ubiquitous” (Lee et al., 2008), “digital” (Hongyan et al., 2012; Kourtit et al., 2017), “creative” (Baylissa, 2007), “innovative” (Isaksen and Wiig, 2001) or a higher order one which may be designated as “city 2.0” (Fraoua and Bourret, 2013). It has been estimated that the “smart cities” market will witness a marked increment over the years to touch US$1.5tn by 2020 (Deloitte, 2017). Six main criteria have been identified to characterize a “smart city”: “smart economy”, “smart environment”, “smart governance”, “smart living”, “smart mobility” and “smart people” (Cohen, 2012). Conceding the multi-dimensional interpretation of “smart city”, it is difficult to provide a definition of the concept (Capdevila and Zarlenga, 2015; Caragliu et al., 2011; de Wijs et al., 2016). For furthering “smart city” initiatives, IT-enabled tools are deployed to further the collaboration and communication between the citizens and the government. Summing up, “smart cities (are) those innovative urban systems that strategically invest in new technologies and human capital, seeking to improve services effectiveness, quality of life, economic competitiveness, environmental sustainability, and participatory governance” (Fernandez-Guell et al., 2016, p. 46; Kamel, 2013). Some of the “smart city” projects are linked with health care, public services, education, transport, climate, etc. While extant literature on “smart city” is replete with studies set in the developed countries, research in the developing countries remains negligible. We seek to plug this research gap by investigating the “smart city” initiatives in the countries constituting the GCC: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Our study is also relevant considering the ongoing impetus upon “economic diversification” in the GCC region as a means of extricating the region out of the plummeting oil-prices crisis. The paper is arranged in six sections: Section 2 shall provide a review of the literature on “smart city” with a view to underline the originality of the present study. Section 3 shall provide a brief about the research method deployed to address the research question underlining the present study. Section 4 shall provide a summarization of the study. Section 5 shall underline the implications of the study. Section 6 shall provide a brief regarding the study limitations and directions for further research.