The role of smart cities to promote smart governance in municipalities

The main focus of this paper is to provide a contextualized reflection about what smart cities are and their primary contribution in promoting smart governance. Objectives. Objectives include amongst others, the definition of the smart city concept and how it can be used as a means to achieve more efficient and sustainable cities. It further elucidates the use of internet enhanced public service delivery to promote smart governance in municipalities. Prior Work. This paper is built upon existing prior work that has been done in the emerging trends in smart cities. Researchers have identified several different “discourses” related to smart cities However, this paper delves deeper into how innovation and the concept of internet of things can enhance public service delivery. It further contextualizes the use of internet enabled public services with the purpose of making municipalities smart cities, with smart governance by offering smart services to its communities. Approach. A qualitative research approach was used to fulfil the objectives of the paper through an in-depth desktop analysis of existing literature from recent journals. Results. The research findings traverse that although a plethora of challenges remain, it is the amenability of both the political and administrative leadership and the gravity attached to technology that determines the extent of depth of transforming municipalities towards the goal of being smart cities. Implications. The overall goal of this paper is to lay a foundation for the development of a comprehensive framework to redirect administrators and political office bearers towards smart city and smart governance inclined policy directives as suggested in the research findings. Inferences drawn from the paper will assist in further research in the field of innovation, smart cities and smart governance as wheels and machinery of service delivery. Value. Finally, this paper attempts to merge theory and practice to work towards understanding of what a smart city means for South African cities through smart governance manage and minimize challenges confronted by municipalities through the use of technology.