Smart cities governance in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region
A systematic review of the literature
This paper presents a systematic review of literature on smart cities within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, focusing on the region's unique urban dynamics and governance challenges. The review is distinctive in that it incorporates both policy documents and reports in addition to academic papers, providing a broader understanding of the state of smart city knowledge and practise in the region. The study identifies five key research themes:
- the social development promises of smart cities,
- institutionalising smart city governance,
- smart cities and digital citizenship,
- smart city infrastructure, and
- approaches to ‘smarting’ the city.
The paper highlights that while digitalisation and datafication are critical topics for further investigation, smart city projects must be analysed through local and governance-focused lenses to ensure relevance to the Southern African context. It suggests that future smart city research should address these areas to create more impactful and regionally applicable agendas.
Abstract based on original source.
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