Smart Cities: Issues and Challenges: Mapping Political, Social and Economic Risks and Threats

Smart Cities: Issues and Challenges: Mapping Political, Social and Economic Risks and Threats serves as a primer on smart cities, providing readers with no prior knowledge on smart cities with an understanding of the current smart cities debates. Gathering cutting-edge research and insights from academics, practitioners and policymakers around the globe, it identifies and discusses the nascent threats and challenges contemporary urban areas face, highlighting the drivers and ways of navigating these issues in an effective manner. Uniquely providing a blend of conceptual academic analysis with empirical insights, the book produces policy recommendations that boost urban sustainability and resilience.

• Combines conceptual academic approaches with empirically-driven insights and best practices
• Offers new approaches and arguments from inter and multi-disciplinary perspectives
• Provides foundational knowledge and comparative insight from global case-studies that enable critical reflection and operationalization
• Generates policy recommendations that pave the way to debate and case-based planning

Anna Visvizi is an economist and political scientist, editor, and research and political consultant with extensive experience in academia, think tank and government sectors in Europe and the United States. Associate Professor at SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Warsaw, Poland, and Visiting Scholar at Effat University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Professor Visvizi’s expertise covers issues pertinent to the intersection of politics, economics, and ICT. This translates in her research and advisory roles in the fields of AI and geopolitics, smart cities and smart villages, knowledge and innovation management, and technology diffusion, especially with regard to the EU and BRI.

Miltiadis D. Lytras is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation, and Knowledge Management at Effat University (Saudi Arabia) and The American College of Greece. He is an internationally recognized researcher with extensive experience in AI, data science, smart systems, and digital innovation across healthcare, education, government, and business. He has served as Principal Investigator and Senior Researcher in numerous international and national research projects and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and over 40 books with leading international publishers. His work focuses on responsible and human-centered AI, advanced decision-making systems, and the strategic impact of emerging technologies on organizations and society.