Investigating the environmental dimension of the integrative framework for smart sustainable cities: empirical evidence and theoretical consolidation

This doctoral thesis constitutes a detailed and holistic exploration of the smart sustainable city concept. In particular, its environmental sustainability dimension is analyzed more in-depth, providing a useful methodological, empirical, and conceptual template by means of which the additional three dimensions of smart urban sustainability (economic, social, and governance) could be analyzed in the future. In particular, the work opens with the Introduction chapter, in which three fundamental problems of modern-day smart city research are identified. These are the excessive techno-centricity of the smart city concept, its practice complexity, and the problem of the proliferation of ad-hoc conceptualizations. The three issues are highly interconnected and are rooted in the excessive simplification of the smart city concept put forward by scholars and practitioners. Each of the following chapters seeks to provide a methodological, empirical, and conceptual remedy to identified issues and the underlying complexity/simplification problem. The answer is provided in the form of a smart sustainable city concept—a holistic and complex urban reality that takes into account the interests and preoccupations of the maximum number of urban-related stakeholders. In this regard, Chapter 2 attempts to overcome the techno-centricity problem by conceptually delineating a smart sustainable city and then looks closer at its environmental dimension as reified in the smart green and smart circular city concepts. Chapter 3 tackles the practice complexity issue by applying a quantum metaphor to a smart city concept. The metaphor relies on the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics and argues for a more nuanced view of urban complexity, primarily re-emphasizing it as an opportunity rather than a threat. The Chapter then examines the more practical notion of using quantum computing and quantum communication in smart cities for more efficient management of urban complexity. Chapter 4 provides a remedy to the ad-hoc conceptualization problem by integrating the results of the two previous chapters within the holistic framework of a smart sustainable city by showing, first, how the so-called circular city relates to the conventional smart city and then, how the conventional smart city technologies relate to quantum technologies. The work then concludes with a more general discussion and overview of the findings, including the holistic framework of smart sustainable cities with a particular emphasis on their environmental sustainability dimensions. Managerial and theoretical implications, limitations of the work, and future research avenues are also presented and thoroughly discussed.