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Urbanization has dramatically intensified over the last years and according to United Nations’ estimations it is expected to further escalate by 2050. Indeed, relevant projections reveal that nearly 64% of inhabitants in developing countries and 86% of people living in developed ones will be residing in urban environments by 2050; while the phenomenon is anticipated to exhibit particular tension in Asia and Africa (UN, 2014). The radical and ominous impacts of the extremely rapid urbanization pace (imprudent energy consumption, increased urban waste generation, poverty, slums, climate change, water shortage, pollution, lack of social cohesion, etc.) constitute the focal point of policy makers and spatial urban planners’ work all around the globe, who desire to deliver widely acceptable, effective, innovative, sustainable and resilient solutions in order to mitigate or prevent those impacts (Madlener & Sunak, 2011; Uttara et al., 2012; Patra et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018).
At the same time, the revolutionary advancements of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), supporting myriads of urban functions and offering improved and high quality services to citizens, businesses as well as public and private actors, have induced drastic alterations to the scientific fields of spatial planning and sustainable urban development; while they can decisively contribute to the effective management of contemporary urban problems (Talvitie, 2003; Caperna, 2010; Fernandez-Maldonado, 2012; etc.). ICT have significantly affected the interaction potential among various actors, providing access to distributed knowledge and intelligence, but also to a wide range of tools and applications. This new scenery brings to the forefront the concept of smart cities as urban environments which, through the wide adoption and use of technology, promote innovation, pursue sustainable urban development objectives and encourage participation of citizens, businesses and other stakeholders in decision-making processes (Caragliu et al., 2011; Deakin & Al Waer, 2011; Nam & Pardo, 2011; Stratigea, 2012; Herrschel, 2013; Albino et al., 2015; Ishkineeva et al., 2015; Meijer & Bolivar, 2015; Meijer et al., 2015; Monfaredzadeh & Berardi, 2015; Grimaldi & Fernandez, 2017; Stratigea et al., 2017a; etc.).
According to the literature review, it is pretty evident that although the use of the term smart city has tremendously increased, especially during the last few years, there is no clear and broadly accepted comprehension of this concept. Therefore, a common ground of mutual understanding, which would serve as a semantic bridge among different scientific disciplines, has not yet been established, with smart cities still “... striving to clarify their identity” (Zait, 2017, p. 377). This has provoked some sort of cacophony in the international literature and academia (Boulton et al., 2011), since numerous definitions have been introduced from time to time. As Chourabi et al. (2012) point out, defining the semantics of a smart city is a complex subject of conceptual research that is still in progress. Indeed, the bibliographic research reveals a plethora of definitions (ITU-T, 2014; Stratigea & Panagiotopoulou, 2015; Stratigea et al., 2015; Kummitha & Crutzen, 2017; Stratigea et al., 2017a; Panagiotopoulou, 2018; etc.) that emanate from various theoretical backgrounds; represent different conceptual approaches (Stratigea et al., 2017a); and underline intense semantic ambiguity and unsolved polysemy issues (Panagiotopoulou, 2018). Some of them focus exclusively on ICT as the prevalent developmental lever of urban environments, while others adopt a broader approach, embracing aspects of society, economy, governance and public participation (Manville et al., 2014).