The barriers toward the economy for underbanked communities are made much deeper due to their access to formal financial services. In recent years, mobile infrastructure and blockchain technology have opened new corners for the establishment of digital identity systems that show promise enabling secure and verifiable identity for greater access to finance. This study contrasts the systems through very rigorous casework in India and Uganda, and a technical comparison of mobile-based concurrent mobile and blockchain-enabled self-sovereign identity (SSI) frameworks. Observations from survey data supplement them by indicating trends on user adoption and challenges. Results indicate that digital identities give an additional entry into financial services anywhere between 20 to 30 percent for the under banked. Although they are the most affected by resistance posed by tried and tested issues such as low digital literacy, lack of infrastructural facilities, trust deficit among consumers, and so on. A hybrid digital identity framework with Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) is thus proposed, which combines the widely accepted benefits of mobile systems with the enhanced privacy and data protection features offered by the blockchain technology. The model is constructed based on affordability, interoperability, and user agency; thus, it is scalable and inclusive to the economic realities faced by sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
This research explores the future synergy between quantum computing (QC) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a tool to revitalize urban transport systems through optimized improvement techniques as well as decentralized governance. Utilizing a conceptual approach combined with thematic analysis, this research provides an integrative framework that combines insights from quantum computing, blockchain governance, and transport geography. Key results include the observation that the integration of these technologies holds the potential to address enduring issues regarding efficiency, sustainability, and equity within transport through exemplary spatial optimization as well as open, participatory governance strategies. However, significant challenges do remain, including energy consumption, the digital divide, as well as regulative uncertainties, requiring careful design, equity-focused protections, as well as effective governance infrastructure. This paper suggests that the actualization of the full potential of these future technologies requires interdisciplinary collaboration as well as a focus on the public good rather than technological advancement alone.
Anurag Shrivastava, RVS Praveen, Raed H. C. Alfilh, Navdeep Singh · 6 authors
The rapid integration of blockchain technology into smart city infrastructure presents both transformative opportunities and environmental challenges. While blockchain enhances transparency, security, and decentralization, its conventional consensus mechanisms-particularly Proof of Work (PoW)-are energy-intensive and environmentally unsustainable. As cities worldwide move towards carbon neutrality, there is an urgent need for energy-efficient and environmentally aligned blockchain systems. This paper introduces a novel Green Consensus Mechanism (GCM) tailored for smart cities that optimizes energy use, reduces carbon emissions, and leverages renewable energy sources. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights from environmental science, distributed computing, and urban planning, the proposed GCM aligns blockchain operations with sustainability goals. Through simulations and comparative analysis against existing mechanisms such as Proof of Stake (PoS), Proof of Authority (PoA), and Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), this study demonstrates significant gains in energy efficiency and operational scalability. The results indicate that GCM can serve as a foundational layer for building carbonneutral smart cities while ensuring secure and decentralized digital governance.
As smart cities continue to evolve through the integration of IoT, AI, and big data analytics, the complexity and scale of cybersecurity challenges have intensified. This chapter examines key vulnerabilities ranging from data privacy breaches to cyber-physical system attacks and highlights the critical role of modern cryptographic technologies in addressing these risks. Techniques such as encryption, blockchain, PKI, homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and quantum cryptography are analyzed for their potential to strengthen smart city infrastructures. Drawing on recent case studies and emerging research, we further explore future directions, including post-quantum security and AI-driven cybersecurity frameworks. The findings of this chapter suggest that strategically embedding cryptographic solutions is essential for building secure, resilient, and citizen-centered smart cities capable of withstanding both current and emerging cyber threats.
Md Mehedi Hasan Emon, Md. Mazid-Ul-Haque, Most. Sharmin Ara Chowdhury, Kh. Mustafizur Rahman
This chapter explores the critical role of advanced cryptographic technologies in securing smart city applications across domains such as e-health, e-commerce, and e-banking. As urban environments become increasingly digitized, safeguarding sensitive data, ensuring transaction integrity, and protecting user privacy emerge as paramount challenges. The chapter explores a spectrum of cryptographic solutions, including blockchain, homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and quantum cryptography, that address these complexities. Through detailed analysis and real-world case studies, it highlights practical implementations and emerging trends that reinforce trust and resilience in smart city infrastructures. Moreover, the chapter discusses the policy and ethical dimensions necessary to balance security with usability and transparency. Finally, it provides a comprehensive framework for integrating cryptographic safeguards into the evolving digital fabric of smart cities, ensuring secure, scalable, and citizen-centric urban services.
This interim report provides a comprehensive overview of stakeholder perspectives on the opportunities and risks associated with the development and administration of fintech, distributed ledger technology and artificial intelligence in Aruba. The Government of Aruba aims to diversify its economy away from its reliance on tourism by developing its information and communications technology (ICT) sector. The report is based on consultations with stakeholders from the public and private sectors, civil society and academia, conducted during an on-site mission in February 2025. Key findings highlight the potential for Aruba to become a base for export-oriented ICT services, leveraging its strong infrastructure and well-trained labour force. However, challenges have also been identified, including regulatory and institutional constraints, limited job opportunities and the risk of brain drain. The report emphasizes the need for a supportive regulatory environment and targeted initiatives to foster innovation and competition in the ICT sector, ultimately contributing to Aruba's economic diversification and resilience.
This chapter depicts the role of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) in the development of smart cities in this digital era, focusing on its perspective to boost urban governance, community engagement, and resource management. A unique digital asset fosters transparent ownership and provenance tracking of urban resources, such as public art, land, and community spaces. The integration of NFTs enhances service delivery and planning as demonstrated in the chapter advance participatory governance, granting citizens to engage in decision-making processes through tokenized voting mechanisms. Moreover, NFTs promote community engagement and tokenized identity expressions, thereby boosting local economies. Finally, the study highlighted the transformative potential of NFTs in creating sustainable, inclusive, and innovative urban environments.
Private city models—encompassing Charter Cities, Free Private Cities, Seasteads, Startup Cities, and Special Economic Zones (SEZs)—are emerging as innovative alternatives to traditional urban governance. This article examines the discussion of these private urban experiments through the lens of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. We present a structured taxonomy of private city models and analyze case studies to illustrate how blockchain can facilitate governance, economic transactions, and transparency in these contexts. Drawing on peer-reviewed literature, we examine how distributed ledger technologies enable new forms of decentralized governance and finance (e.g., local cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance for city services) while also identifying critical challenges and limitations. Comparisons with traditional public-sector urban governance highlight the potential efficiency gains and transparency improvements of blockchain-powered private cities, as well as concerns regarding accountability, inclusivity, and regulatory integration. Finally, we discuss future prospects for integrating blockchain in urban development, including the concept of networked “crypto cities,” and outline key areas for further research. The analysis balances theoretical propositions with empirical insights, ultimately finding that blockchain can augment private city models by enhancing transparency and enabling novel economic systems, but it is not a panacea for governance and must be implemented with careful consideration of social and legal frameworks.
Cities are immense and extremely difficult to conceptualize, let alone model, and previous digitally based efforts have often failed to capture the complexity and indeterminacy of urban organizations. Architects and designers have had trouble conceiving of techniques for examining these systems due to their large number of interacting micro-parts that evolve over time. We’ve also had difficulty finding workable planning strategies that operate in a more decentralized manner to accommodate the multiplicity of (often autonomous) urban decision makers. To this end, an interdisciplinary team composed of an architect and urban designer, a computer scientist, and a mathematician, educator and learning technologist are researching and formulating methods of examining cities using the agent-based digital modeling program NetLogo. 2006 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) West Conference
Ensuring consistent progress toward cities’ net-zero emission goals requires understanding key dimensions of urban climate governance—particularly the motivations driving municipalities toward net zero and the critical barriers and enablers along this pathway. Current knowledge on these critical aspects is fragmented, lacking a holistic framework and empirical prioritization of key factors. We developed an integrated analytical framework and empirically distilled the most salient motivations, barriers, and enablers through a large-scale survey targeting 489 net-zero-committed municipalities—known as “Zero Carbon Cities”—across Japan. With responses from 309 municipalities, we deliver the first systematic mapping of factors perceived as most influential by Japanese local authorities. The results indicate that municipalities are primarily motivated by seizing local economic development opportunities (enhanced local energy conditions, financial gains and savings, and local industry revitalization), future-proofing communities against disasters, and enhancing the local quality of life. Key barriers and enablers were identified across four categories: municipal resources and authority (budgets, dedicated staff, and empowered climate agencies), knowledge and expertise (staff climate competence), institutional coherence (cross-departmental coordination and stakeholder involvement), and political will and leadership (the presence of climate champions and awareness within city halls and among residents). Accordingly, we discuss implications and derive recommendations toward strengthened local action in Japan and beyond.
This study proposes an AI-assisted governance framework to enhance decision-making within decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). By integrating chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning with stakeholder-adaptive recommendations, the framework improves decision alignment, increases voter participation, and enhances governance transparency. Through simulations based on historical KlimaDAO data, the system achieved a 97% alignment with past decisions, a projected 40% increase in participation, and a 35% improvement in governance clarity. To support quantitative analysis in tokenomics, we developed a tailored CoT reasoning strategy, effectively reducing information asymmetry and generating structured, trustworthy recommendations. These results underscore the potential of AI to foster more inclusive and transparent DAO governance. Future work will explore deploying lightweight AI models and extending this approach to a broader range of DAO ecosystems.
The article explores the transitive model of digital statehood as a conceptual response to systemic challenges arising from the dynamic digital transformation of public governance. The author argues that traditional models of state administration no longer provide adequate responses to the rapid evolution of digital tools, infrastructures, and agents that operate within new decision-making spaces — from distributed ledgers to autonomous cognitive systems. Therefore, the concept of transitivity is proposed as a theoretical framework to describe the transition from classical hierarchical forms of statehood to complex, open, and dynamic digital architectures.The methodological foundation of the research combines three complementary approaches: the system-synergetic, institutional-cognitive, and network-platform paradigms. The system-synergetic approach makes it possible to view public governance as a complex open system capable of self-organization and the emergence of new structures in response to external digital impulses. The institutional-cognitive paradigm captures the changing logic of institutional functioning in the context of decentralized knowledge and functions, while the network-platform approach focuses on understanding the state as a digital platform where decisions are formed through the interaction of multiple agents — both human and algorithmic.Within the proposed transitive model, a three-level architecture of digital statehood is introduced: (1) the institutional core, which undergoes cognitive reconfiguration under the influence of digital agents; (2) the infrastructural level, based on the integration of AI and blockchain technologies into functional management mechanisms; (3) the level of external agents — platforms, networks, and users — that actively participate in shaping public decisions. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of smart contracts as a new institutional unit that enables automated, conditional, and irreversible execution of public governance decisions.It is demonstrated that the integration of blockchain and artificial intelligence alters the principles of trust formation, legitimacy, and accountability in digital interaction. At the same time, digital logic becomes the driver of institutional evolution — from fixed models to flexible, adaptive mechanisms functioning in a mode of permanent recalibration. The article also reveals the phenomenon of «post-institutional reflexivity,» in which the role of the state is reimagined — not as a monopolist of authority but as a cognitive integrator of data, platforms, and meanings.The practical value of the study lies in the proposed theoretical construct, which may be applied to the design of digital policy frameworks, the transformation of governance processes in the public sector, and the assessment of risks associated with technological dynamics. The article provides a foundation for further research into the formalization of trust mechanisms, automated decision legitimation, and the synthesis of governance strategies in complex digital environments.
The rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in modern smart cities has led to the creation of myriad ICT-enabled services ranging from automated healthcare and building monitoring to smart energy management. Traditional centralized systems, however, face significant challenges such as single points of failure, vulnerability to hacking, and data tampering. In this paper, we propose a decentralized framework that leverages Ethereumbased smart contracts to enable secure and autonomous automated trading systems for smart cities. Our approach replaces centralized intermediaries with self-executing contracts, which not only guarantee immutable transaction records and real-time execution but also support dynamic pricing mechanisms that balance supply and demand in real time. We demonstrate our framework through two key use cases-smart healthcare and smart building monitoring-illustrating how smart contracts can automate multi-step workflows while preventing issues such as double spending through robust cryptographic measures. Experimental results obtained from a testbed implementation (utilizing Node.js, web3.js, and Ethereum Virtual Machines on Raspberry Pis) highlight the system's fault tolerance, improved transaction speeds, and scalability. Additionally, simulations reveal that as transaction values increase, the risk of double spending can be mitigated by adjusting the hashing power, ensuring a secure and reliable environment for automated trading. This work contributes to the state of the art in blockchain-based automation by providing a viable, cost-effective alternative to traditional, centralized control systems in smart city applications.
Syed Ibad Ali, Mohammad Shahnawaz Shaikh, Kush Bhushanwar, Smita Shahane
Today's cities face numerous challenges due to climate change and urbanization. The concept of a smart city aims to help cities to address these challenges by adapting modern information and communication technology. Smart mobility and transportation form one important aspect of smart cities. Inefficient mobility in cities can lead to problems such as traffic congestion, which results in frustration for residents and a decrease in the quality of life. Against the backdrop of global warming, cities also strive to reduce CO2 emissions, an attempt which requires sustainable and novel mobility concepts. Blockchain is a current technology, said to have huge potential, that is being investigated for application in many facets of smart cities. In the context of smart mobility, blockchain can be used for transactions relating to ridesharing and electric charging, handling of interactions of platoon members, or serving as a foundation for communication between vehicles. Although initial research about this topic exists, it is distributed among different use-cases and applications.
The integration of blockchain technology into smart city governance frameworks is revolutionizing the way urban management systems are structured, enabling secure, transparent, and decentralized decision-making processes. This chapter explores the transformative potential of blockchain-enabled decentralized governance models in enhancing accountability, reducing bureaucratic inefficiencies, and promoting citizen participation. The application of smart contracts and distributed ledgers is examined as a means to automate governance functions, facilitate real-time resource distribution, and ensure trust among stakeholders. Through detailed case studies and critical analysis, the chapter highlights practical implementations of blockchain in local governments, such as energy trading, public service automation, waste management, and participatory budgeting. In addition, the challenges of citizen engagement, legal compliance, and technological integration are addressed with forward-looking strategies for overcoming these barriers. This chapter contributes a comprehensive understanding of how blockchain can reshape urban governance ecosystems, offering scalable, resilient, and inclusive solutions for future smart cities.
James Evans, Davide Cassanmagnago, Tathagata Chatterji, Andrew Irvin · 10 authors
Urban innovation has emerged as a priority to address global climate and sustainability goals. As the world continues to urbanise, global organisations are encouraging cities to spearhead innovation to meet global carbon reduction targets and reduce inequalities (UN Habitat, 2022). Finding new ways to build, manage and live in cities is critical to provide all humans with adequate nutrition, shelter, access to products and services including mobility, leisure, health, energy, and education (UN, 2023). Focusing on the potential role of urban innovation is logical -cities drive innovation by bringing diverse people, knowledge and resources together (Florida et al., 2018). In many ways urbanisation represents the manifestation of new technologies and forms of social organisation, from the hydraulic cities of Mesopotamia 7000 years ago through to industrial and post-industrial cities today (Jacobs, 1969;Athey et al., 2008). However, while the link between cities and innovation is longstanding, the idea of 'urban innovation' as a specific activity to discover new ways to develop, manage and inhabit cities in more sustainable ways is recent, distinct and less familiar. This framing of urban innovation reflects established approaches to governance for sustainability, layered over the distinctive characteristics and capabilities of cities. In this paper we define urban innovation as a directed activity that takes place in and is driven by cities as a way to address local challenges that will contribute to the delivery of global climate and sustainability goals. The emergence of the urban innovation as an influential global policy agenda pushes cities once more to the front of the battle against climate change. This paper examines the emergence of urban innovation as a discrete and influential policy goal to deliver global climate and sustainability goals and outlines a research agenda to help achieve this.The paper is authored with leading global organisations in this space -the United Nations Climate Change Global Innovation Hub and the Global Covenant of Mayors. The United Nations is the leading global organisation coordinating international action on key challenges including climate change. The United Nations Global Innovation Hub for Climate Change promotes innovation as a catalyst for achieving global climate and sustainability targets. Their first global dialogue series focused on cities specifically because of their potential to integrate technological, social, and policy innovations. The Global Innovation Hub emphasizes systemic approaches to urban innovation, fostering cross-sectoral collaboration and community engagement to create sustainable, climate resilient development in urban environments. The Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) represents an alliance of more than 13,000 cities combatting climate change. Through its Innovate4Cities initiative, launched in 2019 in response to the Edmonton Cities and Climate Change Science Conference (Oke et al., 2022), the GCoM alliance outlines the knowledge gaps and action priorities for urban innovation, research and implementation, sharing data and best practices, and unlocking financing for scalable urban innovation projects. Both work closely with the Mission Innovation Urban Transitions Mission, which launched at COP 26 in 2021. This organisation empowers cities worldwide in their transition towards net-zero, resilient, and people-centred cities, mobilizing decision-makers across all levels of government to prioritize pathways enabled by clean energy and systemic innovation across all sectors and in urban governance (Urban Transitions Mission, 2024). The Urban Transitions Mission develops innovation systems capable of transforming cities to address climate change, including a focus on coordinating city level research and innovation challenges (European Commission, 2022).These organisations form part of a Global Innovation Alliance (GIA), which is engaging cities and relevant partners to build a worldwide urban innovation policy agenda for climate and sustainability goals. This policy agenda is complemented by the Global Research and Action Agenda on Cities and Climate Change Science, which provides a cross-sectoral, systems-based foundation for knowledge to enable urban innovation. This document launched at the Cities and Climate Change Science Conference in Edmonton, Canada in 2018, and in its latest iteration following the 2024 Innovate4Cities Conference, serves as an evidence base for the knowledge and innovation outputs being co-created by researchers, governments, businesses, and civil society (Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, UN-Habitat & University of Melbourne, 2024). These initiatives demonstrate the growing ambition for science to inform action and facilitates the exchange of knowledge to support stronger and more ambitious urban solutions and partnerships.The priorities and initiatives of these international organisations individually and collectively show that urban innovation has become central to the delivery of global climate and sustainability goals at multiple levels of governance. Urban innovation is being promoted as a way to develop solutions to challenges in sectors ranging from energy and transport to housing and social justice. By cutting across domains, and more closely engaging economic and knowledge production, urban innovation represents an exciting new way to create more sustainable cities. However, as Bai (2024) notes in relation to the potential of cities to deliver the SDGs, action on the ground requires clarity of roles. The term 'urban innovation' is used widely now in policy and research, but in different ways by different groups to mean different things, not necessarily with sustainability or justice and equity as core values. Realising the potential of urban innovation to deliver climate and sustainability goals requires greater clarity in defining what exactly it is, how it should be done in practice, and who is supposed to be doing it. Given the political weight and resource behind it, researchers have an important role to play in helping to ensure that urban innovation is an equitable and effective. Addressing rather than exacerbating inequalities and making sure successful innovations are actually transformative lie at the forefront of this challenge. This Grand Challenge article builds upon the high levels of current ambition and activity associated with key international initiatives like the Global Innovation Alliance and Global Research and Action Agenda on Cities and Climate Change Science to frame a broad and inclusive research agenda for sustainable cities and urban innovation.Innovation relates to the development of new services, products or processes that generate value through being of use to customers or users. The concept of innovation was arguably first framed as a place-based agenda in scholarship and policies relating to regional innovation clusters. These often developed near universities, most famously in the case of the Silicon Valley innovation cluster in California that grew up around Stanford University. The focus was on supply-side technology development though, with little consideration of the demands of cities and their residents. The emergence of the idea of smart cities in the early Twenty-First Century dramatically changed this, positioning innovation as a key element of place-making. Urban innovation became an activity focusing on how to deploy digital technologies to improve cities and urban services (Angelidou, 2015). Successful examples include the replacement of traditional incandescent bulbs with LED for street lighting, and the adoption of digital information and payment platforms for citizens to engage with municipal authorities. Evidence suggests that cities investing in smart city projects tend to generate economic benefits associated with traditional innovation, gauged through measures such as numbers of patent filings (Caragliu and Del Bo, 2019). A rapidly growing body of work from China suggests a correlation between the innovative capacity of cities and their environmental performance (see for example Tan, et al., 2022;Yang, et al., 2022;Guo, et al., 2023). Work in this context has also identified a positive relationship between the existence of a digital economy and the achievement of low carbon transitions in larger Chinese cities (Liu et al., 2024). However, it is the distinct idea of urban innovation as a directed process that brings different stakeholders together to develop solutions to problems in their own cities that has gained traction beyond smart cities. In relation to environmental policy, the need for practical action to complement international commitments on climate change and sustainable development, coupled with the emergence of world cities as major political actors (Bulkeley, 2013), has provided fertile ground for urban innovation to emerge as a potential driver of societal change. Urban innovation represents the culmination of a longer-term metamorphosis of cities from being framed as sources of sustainability problems to sources of sustainability solutions (Angelo and Wachsmuth, 2020). In principle, urban innovation offers a way to situate and address the United Nation Sustainable Development the context of cities and 2024). 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Urban sustainability researchers are to contribute to this Urban innovation for climate and sustainability goals across all of how we manage and live in cities, requires that how we innovation and in urban Urban innovation the role of cities in societal change, for cities as key in global climate and sustainability The urban innovation agenda to be and that urban sustainability A community of researchers in making initiatives to improve cities, and as and have an important role to play in more inclusive and forms of place-based urban innovation et al., innovation is a to research and is by The of and to urban innovation for sustainability and climate change up a greater role for and research in urban innovation towards sustainability and climate goals. systems approaches that and data to deliver and equitable action in climate resilient development of In approaches that integrate multiple case including the of and challenges a and of practical and The to which urban innovation be like innovation and innovation, In many the of urban innovation are being the and of urban governance. In urban governance not with this Work on urban provides a of and but is more to in innovation policy and but to goals like cross-sectoral and change of research to be the urban innovation In with the of the to Action on Climate Research and this agenda research that is with stakeholders and to cities, and access to and case in Sustainable Cities was on a to and sharing knowledge to help cities become more Cities are around the world but not have the or resources to the role as a global research community is to evidence and that help urban innovation as and as
Open access
Smart Cities and Technologies
Innovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development
Or Yatzkan, Reuven Cohen, Eyal Yaniv, Orit Rotem-Mindali
Urban energy efficiency and sustainability are critical challenges, as cities worldwide attempt to balance economic growth, environmental sustainability, and energy consumption. This systematic review examines the dynamics of urban energy management, focusing on how local authorities navigate energy transitions through efficiency measures, renewable energy adoption, and policy interventions. Specifically, it seeks to answer the following research question: how do local authorities implement energy-efficient practices and adopt renewable energy technologies to reduce emissions, optimize cost-effectiveness, and influence urban policy-making? The goal of this study is to assess the effectiveness of these approaches in different urban contexts. By reviewing 47 articles, this study identifies the unique characteristics of urban energy management and highlights the need for tailored, context-specific solutions, such as integrating decentralized renewable energy systems, optimizing building energy performance, and developing policy incentives that consider local socio-economic conditions. The findings reveal varying degrees of success among cities, with particular challenges in lower-income municipalities, where financial and institutional barriers hinder the implementation of sustainable energy projects. This study concludes that localized approaches and long-term strategies are essential for achieving sustainable urban energy transitions, offering a comprehensive perspective on the complexities of urban energy systems and their evolving policy landscape. Future research should focus on assessing the long-term impact of municipal energy policies, exploring innovative financing mechanisms for renewable energy integration, and examining the role of digital technologies in optimizing urban energy management.