Developing Smart Cities: An Integrated Framework

With the advent of "smartphones", technology has helped mankind to solve some of its difficulties. On a similar note, "smart city" is a futuristic approach to alleviate obstacles triggered by ever-increasing population and fast urbanization which is going to benefit the governments as well as the masses. Modern day cities are deprived of vital elements like quality of life and socio-economic development which can be delivered by the smart cities. Smart cities are an endeavour to make cities more efficient, sustainable and liveable. In other words, a smart city is a city that can monitor and integrate functionality of all the critical infrastructure like roads, tunnels, airways, waterways, railways, communication power supply, etc., control maintenance activities and can help in optimizing the resources while keeping an eye on the security issues as well. This research paper explores various aspects and dimensions of a smart city. To bridge the gap in literature regarding the concept of smart cities and its implementation, a framework has been developed to get better insights about the idea of smart city. On the basis of extensive and deep research of literature from diverse domains, we have identified six significant pillars for developing the framework as: Social, Management, Economic, Legal, Technology and Sustainability (SMELTS). The paper throws light upon how these factors can make the smart city initiative a successful project. The proposed framework has been used to figure out various agendas for research and traces its practical implications.