Open research questions in Smart Cities and Technologies
258 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,498 Smart Cities and Technologies papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.
What the literature leaves open
The paper identifies several challenges related to the study of Smart City environments and mental health, including the complexity and context-dependence of the relationship. The study highlights the importance of considering surveillance and privacy concerns as key psychological stressors. The paper notes the need for standardized risk-of-bias tools to evaluate the quality of included studies.
Smart Cities and Mental Health: A Thematic Review of Environmental, Digital, and Social Determinants · 2026 · DOIThe paper identifies a gap in the existing literature on the relationship between Smart City environments and mental health. Prior work has focused on specific aspects of Smart Cities, but there is a need for a comprehensive review of the environmental, digital, and social determinants of mental health. The paper highlights the importance of considering contextual factors that modify the effects of Smart City features on mental health.
Smart Cities and Mental Health: A Thematic Review of Environmental, Digital, and Social Determinants · 2026 · DOIResearch on more inclusive and human-centered AI-enabled urban development. Debate on the AI Urban Exclusion Cycle.
further research is needed to explore the impact of AI-driven automation on student learning experiences - studies could investigate the effects of AI-powered automation on different aspects of education
The Use of AI-Driven Automation to Enhance Student Learning Experiences in the KSA: An Alternative Pathway to Sustainable Education · 2024 · DOIThere are few studies that have examined how the use of virtual platforms can help to deliver an educational approach that prepares young people to address sustainability challenges. The study aims to address this gap in literature by exploring the use of AI-powered automation to enhance student learning experiences.
The Use of AI-Driven Automation to Enhance Student Learning Experiences in the KSA: An Alternative Pathway to Sustainable Education · 2024 · DOIRapid urbanization and the need for innovative solutions. The challenge of developing smart citizens who can contribute to smart city development. The need to bridge digital and social divides in smart city development.
The role of public libraries in smart city development is underexplored. There is a need to understand how public libraries contribute to the development of smart citizens. The study aims to fill this gap through a comparative case study approach.
The paper identifies the challenge of increasing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions due to ongoing urbanisation. It highlights the need for sustainable energy practices and the integration of renewable energy sources. The paper emphasizes the importance of developing smart energy grids and enhancing energy efficiency in cities.
The gap in the current research is the need for a comprehensive analysis of existing scientific research related to energy in smart cities. There is a lack of identification of technological trends and prospective directions for future studies in this field.
Yet how such strategies influence urban innovation remains insufficiently understood.
Despite increased contributions, social dimensions of sustainability remain unexplored, especially in Global South contexts.
Examining the role of smart cities and sustainability research in achieving SDGs through bibliometric lens · 2025 · DOIIt also highlights the need for further research into the institutional factors that influence this relationship to enhances the policy applicability.
Moreover, lack of data (availability and quality) also remains a hurdle for implementing sustainability in business operations; in other words, accessing clean data is also opaque (Jorzik et al.
Encouraging further research into integrating resilience-focused indicators and innovative solutions is crucial for enhancing sustainable urban development and informing policy decisions.
However, the interplay between these two factors and their impact on sustainability remain underexplored.
Assessing the impact of public digitalization on sustainability: the mediating role of technological innovation in the context of the EU · 2024 · DOIHowever, no studies have given rigorous empirical evidence on the development of tourism under the construction of smart cities.
Smart city construction empowers tourism: mechanism analysis and spatial spillover effects · 2024 · DOIThis study fills a major gap in the literature by offering a comprehensive model for IoT integration in green building design, which indicates its impact.
This study seeks to fill gaps in the literature and elucidate the significance of big data and smart city research, offering a comprehensive analysis that aims to foster academic understanding, promote urban development, and drive technological innovation.
The study acknowledges limitations related to secondary data reliance. Infrastructure disparities and digital readiness gaps among rural communities are also noted as limitations.
Integrating Big Data and Machine Learning to support smart village decisions for agricultural productivity improvement · 2026 · DOIThe study identifies a gap in the existing literature on the integration of Big Data and Machine Learning in agriculture and rural development. The gap is related to the lack of a conceptual framework that illustrates the role of data-driven technologies in rural decision support systems.
Integrating Big Data and Machine Learning to support smart village decisions for agricultural productivity improvement · 2026 · DOIThe development of Green AI strategies to reconcile computational performance with environmental responsibility. The exploration of federated and edge learning to minimize data movement and energy consumption. The investigation of institutional innovation and regulatory foresight to support the effective deployment of AUDiTs.
Towards Agentic Urban Digital Twins (AUDiTs): advancing new urban science through Human-AI co-learning agents · 2026 · DOIThe lack of representation of social complexity, ethical considerations, and stakeholder participation in digital twins. The need for a more collaborative and explainable approach to urban intelligence. The requirement for a framework that combines computational intelligence with ethical, participatory, and system-oriented design.
Towards Agentic Urban Digital Twins (AUDiTs): advancing new urban science through Human-AI co-learning agents · 2026 · DOIThe lack of representation of social groups, urban justice, and the possibility of elite-driven development in smart city initiatives. The tendency to overlook lower-income and marginalized citizens in the implementation of smart city projects. The need for a multi-criteria and multi-dimensional approach in interpreting and carrying out sustainable urbanization.
Assessing Interlinkages Between Sustainable Urbanization and Economic Inequality Using an Integrated AHP-DEMATEL-TOPSIS Approach · 2026 · DOIThe gap between national ambitions and local realities in AI implementation. The lack of research on AI implementation in municipalities.
Implementing Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector: Between National Strategy and Local Challenges · 2026 · DOIUnderstanding how interaction is organised and institutionalised through routines, shared procedures, and stabilised roles remains underexplored, particularly regarding how non-routinised coordination becomes episodic and person-dependent, creating discontinuities between experimentation, formalisation, and scaling.
Implementing Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector: Between National Strategy and Local Challenges · 2026 · DOI
Most-cited papers in Smart Cities and Technologies
- The real-time city? Big data and smart urbanism · GeoJournal · 2013 · 2,069 citations
- Current trends in Smart City initiatives: Some stylised facts · Cities · 2014 · 1,801 citations
- What are the differences between sustainable and smart cities? · Cities · 2016 · 1,125 citations
- Smartmentality: The Smart City as Disciplinary Strategy · Urban Studies · 2013 · 1,077 citations
- On big data, artificial intelligence and smart cities · Cities · 2019 · 988 citations
- Smart city policies: A spatial approach · Cities · 2014 · 774 citations
- Critical interventions into the corporate smart city · Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society · 2014 · 728 citations
- Smart cities: A conjuncture of four forces · Cities · 2015 · 682 citations
- The ‘actually existing smart city’ · Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society · 2014 · 681 citations
- Making sense of smart cities: addressing present shortcomings · Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society · 2014 · 667 citations
Most recent work
- Strategic Management of Urban Services Using Artificial Intelligence in the Development of Sustainable Smart Cities—Managerial and Legal Challenges · Sustainability · 2026
- Rules and responsibilities in smart city governance: Exploring the architecture of data value chain · Government Information Quarterly · 2026
- Smart cities, unequal outcomes: Artificial intelligence, environmental regulation, and urban carbon distribution in China · Technological Forecasting and Social Change · 2026
- Prioritizing interoperable AI-driven solutions for sustainable circular economy in the public sector · Technological Forecasting and Social Change · 2026
- How does urban-rural integration synergize food security and agricultural carbon efficiency? The moderating role of artificial intelligence and heterogeneous pathways · Journal of Rural Studies · 2026
- The impact of intelligent computing centers construction on urban new-quality productivity: An empirical study based on 287 prefecture-level cities in China · Socio-Economic Planning Sciences · 2026
- Smart city strategy, China’s urban innovation and policy effectiveness · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · 2026
- Smart urban tourism: cross-sector collaboration and artificial intelligence in the service of sustainable urban development: a European case study approach · Quality & Quantity · 2026
- Governing with artificial intelligence: Mapping the knowledge systems shaping urban intelligence · Technology in Society · 2026
- Modelling nature? The digital twinning and untwinning of urban farms · Geoforum · 2026
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