By 2050, it is expected that 66% of the global population will dwell in urban regions. For the United States, the urban population would likely climb to 90% of the US population, creating increasingly acute challenges for sustainable growth and economic equity. The urban centers are becoming too difficult to manage and too big to fail. Fortunately, technology advancements, such as advanced sensor technologies, internet of things (IoT), and analytic solutions driven by machine learning and artificial intelligence, are also in rapid development and deployment in cities around the world in numerous ways. This crucial transformation is often referred as “Smart City Initiative.” Consequently, “Smart City” has become an interdisciplinary field of study across multiple disciplines.
While the smart city concept is ambitious and diverse, there are six key domains of innovation: Smart Economy, Smart People, Smart Governance, Smart Mobility, Smart Environment, and Smart Living. Furthermore, a smart city does not simply adopt novel technology but also emphasizes achieving positive impacts on local communities. A smart city is an effective integration of physical, digital, and human systems in the built environment to deliver a sustainable, prosperous, and inclusive future for its citizens. Hence efforts and developments in Smart Cities research aligns well with the grand challenge of Good Systems project: designing AI technologies that benefit society.