Smart Information Architectures: Ambient Data and Smarter Governance

1. Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to explore smartness in cities in relation to smart information architectures, advancing an approach that takes people into consideration in coming to understandings of big data (Batty, 2013) and small data (Estrin, 2014). As such, this work seeks to shed light on the importance of data in urban environments and the purposeful leveraging of real-time analytics for interactions in the city in support of smarter governance (Gil-Garcia, Zhang, and Puron-Cid, 2016). The research literature for information architectures (Schmitt, 2015), smart governance (Gil-Garcia, Zhang, and Puron-Cid, 2016; Eglé, Jurgita, and Jolanta, 2015), and ambient data (McKenna, 2017a) is explored in this chapter in the context of smart and responsive cities, enabling identification of issues, controversies, and problems. Using an exploratory case study approach, solutions and recommendations are advanced. This chapter makes a contribution to: a) the research literature for ambient data, smart information architectures, and smarter governance; b) the evolving of urban theory for 21^st century cities; and c) smart city urbanities through formulation of a conceptual framework for smart information architectures as an adaptive data management framework.

• Objectives: The objective of this chapter is to advance smart information architectures as an adaptive data management and governance framework for smart cities. As such the key research question posed is – How does smartness contribute to urbanity in contemporary urban environments?

2. Background And Overview

An approach to understanding urban data (Batty et al., 2012), big data (Batty, 2013; Kitchin, 2014; Hashem et al., 2016) and small data (Estrin, 2014) that takes people into consideration is explored in this chapter in becoming more aware of the purposes and value of real-time data about interactions in the city. The Internet of Data (IoD) (Fan, Chen, Ziong, and Chen, 2012), the Internet of Things (IoT) (Khatoun and Zeadally, 2016; Coletta and Kitchin, 2017; Memos et al., 2018), along with other emergent forms of sharing and collaboration are highlighted, in discussing the challenges and opportunities of data relationships in smart cities. This chapter builds upon the notion of adaptive governance by Janssen and van der Voort (2016) and Ben Letaifa’s (2015) SMART model for the strategizing of smart cities. Gil-Garcia, Zhang, and Puron-Cid (2016) claim that to move beyond government 2.0 requires a re-thinking of “the role of governments, citizens, and other social actors” contributing to “possibilities of forging new processes, relationships, structures, and even a new governance model.” Indeed, “in an era of wicked social problems”, Gil-Garcia, Zhang, and Puron-Cid (2016), referring to the work of Gil-Garcia and Sayogo (2016), point to the need for “a smarter, more responsive, more efficient governance structure” in order to “take advantage of the enormous capability of the public to congregate, interact, and collaborate” as a mechanism for “finding solutions to intricate sociotechnical challenges.”