Smart city development has emerged as a major issue over the past 5 years. Since the launch of IBM’s Smart Planet and CISCO’s Smart Cities and Communities programmes, their potential to deliver on global sustainable development targets has captured the public’s attention. However, despite this growing interest in the development of smart cities, little has been published that either sets out the state-of-the-art or offers a less than subjective, arm’s length, and dispassionate account of their potential contribution.

Smart Cities brings together cutting-edge research and findings from technical development projects by leading authorities within the field to capture the transition to smart cities. It explores what is understood about smart cities, with particular attention on the governance, modelling, and analysis of the transition that smart cities seek to represent. In paving the way for such a representation, the book begins to account for the social capital of smart communities and starts the task of modelling their embedded intelligence through an analysis of what the "embedded intelligence of smart cities" contributes to the sustainability of urban development.

This innovative book offers an interdisciplinary perspective and will be of interest to researchers, policy analysts, and technical experts involved in and responsible for the planning, development, and design of smart cities. It will also be of particular value to final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in Geography, Architecture, and Planning.