There is no universally accepted definition of a smart city. It means different things to different people. The conceptualisation of Smart City, therefore, varies from city to city and country to country, depending on the level of development, willingness to change and reform, resources and aspirations of the city residents. To provide for the aspirations and needs of the citizens, urban planners ideally aim at developing the entire urban eco-system, which is represented by the four pillars of comprehensive development-institutional, physical, social and economic infrastructure.

In the approach of the Smart Cities Mission, the objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart’ Solutions. The focus is on sustainable and inclusive development and the idea is to look at compact areas, create a replicable model which will act like a light house to other aspiring cities.

The core elements in a Smart City would include …

Few success stories are as follows …

• Bangkok: Improving neighborhoods through citizen-led planning
• Barcelona: Promoting solar energy to increase sustainability
• Curitiba: Increasing recycling through citizen incentives
• Hangzhou: Bike sharing to improve public mobility
• Hyderabad: Soliciting citizen feedback to improve service delivery
• Istanbul: Pedestrainizing streets to improve public mobility
• Los Angeles: Retrofitting buildings to facilitate private investments
• Mumbai: Bringing sanitation solutions to urban slums
• New York: Transforming streets to increase mobility and public safety
• Porto Alegre: Improving city life through participatory budgeting
• Rajkot: Increasing transparency to improve transportation service
• Surat: Upgrading sanitation to improve public health