What is a smart city? Understanding the concept beyond a tech-centric approach

Modern cities are facing unprecedented challenges, ranging from unprecedented population growth, climate change, resource scarcity and more recently the global COVID-19 pandemic. Such, however, could be attributed to the way cities were fashioned via contemporary planning principles, and the associated planning models that have contributed to shape cities into nodes facing issues of car dependency, and socio-economic fractures. While there has been some criticism in its inception, the emergence of the Smart Cities concept has been seen to have capacity to spark new optimism in not only overcoming those challenges, but also in orienting cities to adapt to future changes, especially those associated with existing and emerging technologies. However, while technology is the main component and the basis on which Smart Cities are anchored, it will be critical to go beyond and consider other aspects such as sustainability, human dimensions and others that ultimately make cities 'smart'.