The past few decades have observed a worldwide metaverse development. User-interactive, digitally produced settings make up the metaverse. The metaverse could revolutionize, reshape, and redefine smart cities through enhancing infrastructure, modernizing services provided by governments, enhancing convenience, speeding up the growth of the economy, and encouraging long-term viability. In this study, the authors explain how using the metaverse towards smart cities might spur development and enhance its implementation. They cover essential metaverse innovations, their top advantages, and smart city implementations. They demonstrate metaverse technology's applicability throughout sectors with active initiatives and cases. They also highlight and address major research hurdles that are preventing the metaverse from reaching its maximum capacity. They conclude with additional investigation objectives for developing the metaverse and smart city interconnectivity.
TopThe term “Metaverse” refers to a virtual, interconnected, and immersive digital universe or space that transcends the boundaries of the physical world (Mystakidis, 2022). It is a collective virtual shared space where users can interact with each other, digital objects and environments in real time, often through the use of Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), or other advanced digital technologies (Kamenov, 2021).
Three decades ago, author Neal Stephenson introduced the idea of the metaverse in his novel “Snow Crash” published in 1992 (Stephenson, 2003). Within his literary work, Stephenson envisions a parallel virtual realm in which individuals have the opportunity to both inhabit and engage in work-related activities. These virtual interactions, which transcend the conventional constraints of time and space, are often regarded as the epitome of the internet’s capabilities. In the metaverse, users can create, explore, socialize, work, play and conduct various activities, similar to the way the people engage in the physical world (Ball, 2021). It encompasses a wide range of experiences, from virtual world and online games to social media platforms, virtual economies, and immersive simulations. The metaverse is characterized by its vastness, interactivity, and the sense of presence it provides to users, making it significant concepts in the fields of technology, entertainment and digital culture (McKinsey & Company, 2022). It can be described as an expansive system of interconnected virtual realms, as opposed to single virtual world. This system is intended to enhance reality with virtual elements, providing an immersive three-dimensional experience that holds the potential for generating significant profits (Zhao et al., 2022).