UNDERSTANDING AND DEVELOPING A FRAMEWORK FOR SMART SUSTAINABLE CITIES

Abstract

More than half of the world’s population now lives in urban areas and the concentration of people is urban areas is only going to be an upward curve. Along with growth, the challenges are inevitable. The challenges concerns with various aspects. Governments, researchers, corporates, industries and citizens are coming out with various ideas to address the challenge. But to really solve the problem that is facing cities, there has to be a unified decision. Up till now, not a lot of research has been done to bring all the stakeholders views to the same platform. The definitions developed so far have not been put to complete use because of biases by stakeholders. To address the issue of a disconnected definition and build a unified view on smart sustainable cities, this dissertation proposes a framework. In the unification process, 85 definitions which predominantly comprises of 4 major stakeholders were collected. The framework was developed based on 6 indicators; Sustainable Environment, Sustainable Living, Sustainable Urban Services, Sustainable Economy, Sustainable Governance and Sustainable Technology. The indicators are supported by 35 secondary characteristics called the keywords. A comparative analysis is done between stakeholders, indicators and keywords. The results of the analysis form the basis of the comprehensive framework. The framework directs the policy makers and strategy developers to create an unbiased definition for a smart sustainable city.