IIIEE researchers Yuliya Voytenko and Kes McCormick have joined a group of international researchers to act as guest editors for a Special Issue on smart and sustainable cities in the Local Environment journal. The special issues brings together a diverse collection of papers that explore the relationship between urban sustainability and smart city development. Read more on the Local Environment, The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, website.

INTRODUCTION:

"Smart cities promise to generate economic, social and environmental value through the seamless connection of urban services and infrastructure by digital technologies, but there is scant evidence concerning their ability to enhance social wellbeing, build just and equitable communities, reduce resource consumption and waste generation, improve environmental quality or lower carbon emissions. This Special Issue addresses the gap between the pipedream and the practice of smart cities, focusing on the social and environmental dimensions of real smart city initiatives, and the possibilities that they hold for creating more equitable and progressive cities. We argue that social equity and environmental sustainability are neither a-priori absent nor de-facto present in technological designs of smart city initiatives, but have to be made, nurtured and maintained as they materialise in particular places. This is the ‘possibility’ alluded to in our title, and where the focus of the Special Issue on the gap between the pipedreams and practicalities of smart cities leads."