Pathways to the Making of Prosperous Smart Cities: An Exploratory Study on the Best Practice

In this paper, we examine the understudied issue of the pathways to smart cities. While the extant literature on smart cities offers several insights into what smart cities are, with a few notable exceptions, it has less to say about: how they come to be? With this latter question in mind, we identify three pathways to smart cities: 1) a green field development pathway, 2) a neighborhood development pathway, and 3) a platform-oriented platform. Drawing on nine different case-studies, we offer some insights into the way in which each of these pathways is, more or less, able to realize the desired smart-city objectives. While exploratory in nature, the study offers unique insights into the pathways to smart cities as well as areas for future research.