Smart Cities and Sustainable Development. A Case Study

Cities are the economic engines of the future due to the great migration that occurs in rural environments, and more than 60 % of the world’s population will live in cities by 2030. These circumstances may lead to an unsustainable growth. Sustainability must be understood from a multidisciplinary perspective taking into account all the players involved. Under this premise new urban developments arise, called smart cities, where it works to develop sustainable management. This article has two goals: first, to contribute to the state of the art in the theory of smart cities and second, to complete the limited academic research in this field of study. In order achieve those goals, three Spanish smart cities were analyzed because of their strategy for sustainable management. The methodology used is the study of multiple holistic cases. Pillars and variables must be considered in the smart cities, based on the Spanish Network of Smart Cities, the White Book of Smart Cities, MIT and sets Sustainable Cities Index. This study tries to see if the smart cities of the sample disclose information about the variables defined. The main conclusion shows that environmental management, governance and entrepreneurship and citizen participation are mainstays of any smart city. The limitations found are that the analyzed information is only displayed on their websites and access to information is limited. A future line of research will highlight the potential advantages of the cities that are considered sustainable compared to those which are not.