Sustainable urban management through digital transformation and technologies in the South : challenges and prospects

Abstract

Traditional urban management plays a critical role in urban governance, addressing the increasing urban challenges relating to urban housing, land, infrastructure, services, and livelihood using policies, principles, specialised tools, and programmes. With increased urbanisation and population growth, the pursuit of sustainable development brings about complex challenges in planning and managing primary and secondary cities towards sustainability and efficiency. With urban centres and cities being a scramble point for shelter, employment, mobility, and access to quality health and education, urban managers are posed with a significant challenge in making predictions, planning, and managing cities timeously with updated information in real-time for better efficiency. These challenges have resulted in the development of various city concepts leaning on sustainability, innovation, information and communication technologies to better manage urban centres and cities. Despite developing various urban management approaches, smart city concepts and agendas, many Southern cities and even the North grapple with complex urban problems. The question thus arises: how can digital technologies and innovations be used in a sustainable way to improve traditional urban management in the cities of the South, considering their peculiar challenges? Following the broad paradigm of cognitive cities theory and smart governance theory, this paper explores the challenges and prospects of leveraging technological advancements in managing cities and improving urban management. While extensive structured and unstructured urban data are collected occasionally in silos by companies and municipalities, these data sets are not integrated to influence planning and management when they are processed. This article concludes that an integrated digital approach to urban management offers new sustainable pathways to address the planning, development, governing, monitoring and maintaining of cities using the Internet of Things, machine learning, remote sensing, drone technology, and other innovative practices.