Development of Smart Neighbourhoods: The Urban Planning and Digital Technologies Nexus

Dear Colleagues,

The commencement of societal transitions towards Smart Cities at a micro level with an opportunity to scale up to the macro level has been advocated as a means of securing buy-ins from most of the global population. This has resulted in the emergence of the Smart Neighbourhood concept since neighbourhoods are often regarded as building blocks of the city. The ability of well-planned Smart Neighbourhoods to facilitate the management of the high growth rates, reduction in the incidence of urban slums, enhancement in mass transit opportunities and decongestion, provision of adequate housing and improvement in citizen health and well-being has been postulated. Suffice to say, such neighbourhoods should be designed to aid healthy living and liveability whilst providing an economical advantageous way of working, shopping, and growing.

As microcosms of Smart Cities, Smart Neighbourhoods should be forward-thinking, resource-efficient and interconnected. Therefore, these neighbourhoods are expected to serve as a platform, within which devices, such as sensors, actuators, and smartphones, are embedded, leveraging on the connectivity potentials offered by the Internet of Things (IoT). Similarly, the positive contributions of other digital technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Blockchains, Smart Contracts, among other digital technologies towards engendering sustainable livelihoods in Smart Neighbourhoods and cities alike, have also been documented in extant literature. Accordingly, an increasing deployment of these technologies in enabling optimal and sustainable energy generation and usage, water management, indoor and outdoor environmental quality, waste management, intelligent and autonomous vehicular transportation, e-healthcare, e-education, and e-governance has been observed. The implementation of these technologies in the development of Smart Neighbourhoods is largely dependent on effective urban planning processes. However, a paucity of studies seeking to explore this nexus has been observed, hence, prompting this Special Issue. Engaging with urban planning in a business-as-usual manner in the current era would undermine society’s transition towards Smart Cities via Smart Neighbourhoods. Therefore, it has become imperative to investigate the utility of the current urban planning theories and processes, community-based planning, and asset management processes as well as governance structures in engendering the optimal deployment of these technologies within Smart Neighbourhoods. This Special Issue is predicated on this salient need.

In this Special Issue, we would like to invite research works, real-world use cases, and scenarios focusing on the contribution of digital technologies towards facilitating a paradigmatic shift in urban planning theories, principles, and processes in the development of smart neighbourhoods. Further, studies focusing on the impact of urban planning principles on the deployment of digital technologies within Smart Neighbourhoods are welcome.

Dr. Bankole Osita Awuzie
Dr. Temitope Omotayo
Dr. Lovelin Obi
Guest Editors

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• digital technologies
• interoperability
• systems thinking
• smart neighbourhoods
• urban systems