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The recent debate on smart cities research is challenged by the arrival of brand-new technologies and new ideas on their social impact. Beyond the hype and the expectations, the next generation smart cities research has to be grounded on the lessons learnt and the experience of the current extensive implementations of smart cities projects worldwide. Additionally, it is required to revisit the basic assumptions for the added value of smart cities research to the strategic blueprints around the world. This chapter is aiming to communicate a new agenda for future smart cities research including social, economic, technological, and community factors. The main contribution is organized around a framework that intends to integrate the technology sophistication, the human and social dynamics, and the strategy orientation of smart cities.

This paper is premised upon an analysis of 26 cities within the UK regarding their smart city projects. Each city was analyzed through news articles, reports and policy documents to ascertain the level of each city's development as a smart city. Each was coded by separating the projects into five types, which were ranked on a scale from 0 (no plans for use) to 5 (project type in use). The most common types are the provision of open data and the creation of business ecosystems as the primary driver of the smart city. However, many councils and enterprises proclaim smartness before the technology is actually in use, making it difficult to separate what is utilised and what is under development. Therefore, this paper further carried out an analysis of 20 cities and their intended plans to usher in the smart city, to observe the expected emergence of smart city technology. This was achieved by interrogating various roadmaps and policy documents produced by the respective cities. It was found that the most prevalent form of emergent smart city technology is the rollout of 5G and increased educational programmes alongside a proliferation of internet of things and electric vehicle usage.

The purpose of this trends paper is to offer insights into the technological changes affecting our cities and urban tourism destinations, and to explore avenues for further research and practice in the context of smart tourism destinations.

The literature on smart cities and smart tourism destinations is analysed in view of delivering a research agenda for a new generation of “post-smart” tourism destinations, beyond existing paradigms in this field.

Smart tourism research to date is found to be lacking in terms of addressing emerging (“post-smart”) social issues increasingly faced by global tourism cities, such as growing inequalities between host communities and visitors, wellness (e.g. slow tourism and slow cities) and resilience and mental health (e.g. digital detox), among others.

A post-smart approach to tourism city management and marketing calls for rethinking of existing tourism and urban policies that address wider sustainability issues exemplified by the urban transitions debate as well as adopting a more holistic networked approach to smartness involving entire regions. This also calls for the development of a new research agenda in urban tourism through a new prism – the post-smart “wise” tourism destination.

A new tourism futures construct – the “wise” tourism destination – is posited. This is done within the context of a new (“post-smart”) generation of tourism cities. It is argued that “wise” tourism cities will require novel attributes and adopt a visionary strategic positioning well beyond today’s smart tourism destination paradigms. Additionally, a tentative research agenda for “wise” tourism cities is discussed.

Globally, urban planners and decision makers are pursuing place-based initiatives to develop and enhance urban infrastructure to optimise city performance, competitiveness and sustainability credentials. New discourses associated with big data, Building Information Modelling, SMART cities, green and biophilic thinking inform research, policy and practice agendas to varying extents. However, these discourses remain relatively isolated as much city planning is still pursued within traditional sectoral silos hindering integration. This research explores new conceptual ground at the Smart – Natural City interface within a safe interdisciplinary opportunity space. Using the city of Birmingham UK as a case study, a methodology was developed championing co-design, integration and social learning to develop a conceptual framework to navigate the challenges and opportunities at the Smart-Natural city interface. An innovation workshop and supplementary interviews drew upon the insights and experiences of 25 experts leading to the identification of five key spaces for the conceptualisation and delivery at the Smart-Natural city interface. At the core is the space for connectivity; surrounded by spaces for visioning, place-making, citizen-led participatorylearning and monitoring.The framework provides a starting point for improved discussions, understandings and negotiations to cover all components of this particular interface. Our results show the importance of using all spaces within shared narratives; moving towards ‘silver-green’ and living infrastructure and developing data in response to identified priorities. Whilst the need for vision has dominated traditional urban planning discourses we have identified the need for improved connectivity as a prerequisite. The use of all 5 characteristics collectively takes forward the literature on socio-ecological-technological relationships and heralds significant potential to inform and improve city governance frameworks, including the benefits of a transferable deliberative and co-design method that generates ownership with a real stake in the outcomes.

Digitalising cities requires new urban governance processes that account for rapidly changing environments and technological advances. In this context, agile development methods have become valuable, if not necessary. However, agile development contradicts public administration practices of risk aversion and long-term planning. The purpose of this study is to discuss practical avenues for navigating these two contradictions by adapting agile development to the needs of public sector organisations.

The authors review the collaborative elaboration of Dresden’s smart city strategy as a critical case study. Dresden’s smart city strategy was developed using agile development and quadruple-helix innovation. The year-long co-creation process involved stakeholders from various groups to conceive an integrated and sustainable vision for digitalisation-based urban development.

Despite the apparent contradictions, this study finds that key aspects of agile development are feasible for public sector innovation. Firstly, risks can be strategically managed and distributed among administration and non-administration stakeholders. Secondly, while delivering value through short iterative loops, adherence to formal processes remains possible. Informal feedback cycles can be harmoniously combined with official statements, allowing iterative progress.

The empirical material is based on a single case study and thus risks overemphasising the general applicability of the proposed methods.

This paper outlines practical steps to greater agility for public administration engaged in digitalising cities. The paper conceptualises a forward and lateral momentum for the agile development of a smart city strategy that aims to reconcile formal policymaking processes with short-term loops and risk aversion with experimental value creation. This approach balanced risks, created value and enhanced the strategy‘s alignment with strategic frameworks, ultimately promoting innovation in the public sector.

This paper proposes a novel, empirically grounded conceptualisation of implementing agile methods that explicitly recognises the peculiarities of public administrations. It conceptualises the orchestrated and pragmatic use of specific agile development methods to advance the digitalisation of cities.

This study explores the relationship between Tourism Systems and Smart Cities, aiming to identify what prevents public managers from including these systems in Smart City strategies. This separation neglects that increasing tourism attractiveness may also impact city resources, infrastructures and inhabitants.

To this end, we developed a critical literature review consulting three databases: Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCOhost. A total of 73 articles were selected and analyzed through thematic analysis.

Through this critical review, we develop a framework of barriers to integrating a tourism system in Smart City strategies composed of four main barrier themes and 11 barrier factors. Findings show the need for innovative research and public managers to go beyond considerations related to technological challenges and instead focus on other barriers hindering integration, such as the lack of participatory governance and knowledge of tourism systems' current and future impact.

This study offers a critical identification of barriers impeding the inclusion of tourism systems in Smart City strategies, providing a useful guideline for public managers aiming to follow an innovative approach to smart development where tourism can still be a tool to enhance the attractiveness of the territory while considering its current and future impact on the city.