Making the smart region transition: towards a conceptual and assessment framework

Smart region related policy has gained considerable importance. The UN has included "Smart City" as one of the goals in its sustainable development goals (SDG 11- Sustainable Cities and Communities). The concept of Smart regions goes beyond the smart city concept. Smart region, in principle, means the inclusion of smart city (urban) along with non-urban or rural areas as an integral part of the strategic interventions. E-governance has over the years played a key role in bridging the digital-divide between urban and rural areas, thus an important concept in smart regions. Consequently, we offer a conceptualization of smart regions as comprising smart cities and rural e-governance initiatives. This conceptualization is employed in assessing a region initiative in India - Ahmedabad to determine to what extent it could be labelled as a smart region. We argue that our emerging conceptualization offers pragmatic value for regional and spatial planning in contexts looking to scale islands of smart cities initiatives into smart regions.

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