Smart Cities: Challenges and Opportunities
Mohammad Ilyas
The concept of smart cities has received a significant interest recently among researchers. United Nations reports that more than half of the world population currently lives in urban environment, and is estimated to increase to about 70% by 2050. This trend needs serious attention by governments to create solutions that will make sure that their citizens will continue to have sustainable and improved quality of life. Smart cities use all the available technologies to achieve that goal and to improve the efficiency of their operations. This massive undertaking of making existing cities smart and building the new smart cities, comes with many opportunities as well as some challenges. Digitization of services, smart operations, and connectivity are essential parts of smart cities. The smart cities will certainly promote cohesive, connected, healthier, and happier communities. This paper elaborates the opportunities and the challenges in moving the smart cities concept forward. Full Text
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