Smart Cities: GCC and Kuwait Experience

Abstract

This study has two main objectives. First, spread out attention toward modern urban modeling and smart cities development in the GCC countries in general and Kuwait in particular. Second, expand existing scholarly concern on digital urbanization notion beyond the scope of the worldwide developed economies. There is a need to include the GCC countries to the scholarly urban literature since such countries are now highly urbanized. Also, the knowledge-based economy is applied through adopting the digitalization processing toward offering public and private services to their communities. The study concludes that smart cities have become very much significant through offering preeminent solutions to several environmental, economic, and societal problems in urban regions. For the GCC, it is crucial to identify the concept and structure of the targeted smart city initiative which should be linked to the country’s national strategic vision. Additionally, what proxies are used to judge on how smart is a city? Not less important, adopting the smart cities format would require overcoming significant limitations in order to overcome urban pressures through introducing the smart cities initiatives.

1 Introduction

Urban cities are growing across the world as a result of the rapid growth in urban populations. This unprecedented progression initiates the need to introduce an effective urban city design to accommodate the urbanization confronts in urban areas (i.e., population detonation pressure, increase in cities’ consumption, variability in people’s standards of living, expensive cost of living, environment pollution, insufficient infrastructure competences, mainly traffic congestion, etc.). Thus far, insightful design is becoming enormously crucial for official city planners and practitioners as the form of a smart city is introduced. Under the smart city format, it is expected that cities would be more resilient, environmentally sustainable, and efficient in providing services that would lead to better quality of life (QoL) for residents.

In fact, future urbanization statistics boost the smart city’s prominence as a relevant solution to urban population pressure. These statistics signify the introduction of the informational urbanism notion to most urban regions.¹ For example, while approximately 55% of the world’s population is currently living in cities, the United Nations expects that an average of 70% of the world population will live in urban areas by the year 2050. Additionally, it is estimated that more than 80% of the entire population of Europe and 50% of the population in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will live in urban cities (see Constro, 2021; Ringel, 2021; United Nation, 2018). When considering the level of income, the 2050 statistics estimate that the urban population would rise to 88.4% in high-income countries in general and 90% in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in particular. This estimated increase is a clear indication of the interdependence between the urbanization rate and quality of life. The lower the income is, the lower the level of urbanization (Asmyatullin et al., 2020; Bufetova, 2013).²

Similar expansion is mirrored crosswise in the GCC region, where urbanization is expanding, and many challenges are encountered.³ Some of these challenges include but are not limited to upward regional growth rates of urbanization, limited diversified economies (which are restricted to oil products), variability in sources of income (since oil prices are volatile), infrastructure issues (particularly those related to education, healthcare, and transportation), climate concerns, upgrading quality of public services provided to residents, stimulating sustainable economic development, inspiring quality of residents’ life, etc. To overcome these challenges and others alike, GCC countries are now considering initiating smart cities and adopting digitalized economies as urgent vision-oriented initiatives. The initiative designates an informational-technological perspective of urban management processing. Hence, developing and adopting smart appliances has been significantly endorsed in the future national strategies of the GCC countries.

In this chapter, we argue that while there are ideal industrial cities (industrial societies) and ideal services cities (services societies), there will be an ideal digital or smart city (digital or smart societies) very soon. Apparently, the ideal digital or smart cities will keep making headway as the world is changing rapidly toward the informational urbanism notion, which will be the norm in the very near future. We argue that the informational notion will be achievable by many societies in the world, and the typical knowledgeable cities will be the dynamic that would categorize societies futurewise. Many cities are currently evolving their digital information abilities by centering their interest on knowledge-based urban expansion in areas of higher education, health, infrastructure, telecommunication, transportation, science labs, ingenuity of human capital, and so on (see Barth et al., 2017; Carillo et al., 2014; Madanipour, 2011). This is quite true since cities are competing in constructing and updating their information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, which qualifies many aspects of knowledge and information to be converted to digital applications rather than physical functioning.

This study aims to increase attention to smart city development in GCC countries in general and Kuwait in particular. It seeks to expand existing scholarly investigations on urban modeling and digital urbanization beyond the scope of developed economies worldwide. In fact, little attention has been given to the notion of smart city development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the GCC countries, although most of their populations are now urbanized, and technology infrastructure is based on global best practices and mutual learning. Additionally, digitalization is adopted in many public and private services and deliberated as an option to create a knowledge-based economy. For Kuwait, the country is moving ahead toward modeling new urban cities to overcome the pressure caused by the urban population.

Three reasons motivated the work in our chapter. First, smart city initiatives are still in their go-forward stages since the impact of those initiatives toward overcoming the urban population challenges in the GCC countries has not yet been clearly achieved. Second, the smart city format is supposed to propound solutions to the environmental, economic, and social challenges in urban zones, but this is not yet confirmed by the related GCC literature. Finally, most smart cities are characterized by their capability to achieve integration between people, technology, and information. The objective is to generate efficient, sustainable, and resilient infrastructure and quality of services that would boost the quality of life (QoL) of residents in terms of education, health, transportation, public and private services, public safety, and the like. This is not approved thus far as per the current status of the GCC countries.

The study proceeds as follows: Sect. 2 presents the concept of smart cities as per the literature. Section 3 focuses on the necessity of smart cities. In Sect. 4, the different structuring formats of a smart city are outlined. How smart is a city? is outlined in Sect. 5, while the GCC experience is discussed in Sect. 6. The case of Kuwait is detailed in Sect. 7, which shows the country’s strategic concern of smart city initiatives and their needs to the country. The Saad Al-Abdullah smart city initiative is summarized as a smart city format in Kuwait. Section 8 concludes by reviewing some of the overall limitations confronting smart city initiatives, particularly those in the context of Kuwait.

2 What Is a Smart City?

The term smart city or smart city was first introduced in the 1990s, where the focus was on the significance of information communication technology (ICT) to update infrastructure within cities (see Harrison & Donnelly, 2011; Albino et al., 2015). During the last two decades, smart cities have been advanced and labeled informational cities, digital cities, ubiquitous cities, knowledge cities, or creative cities.

As per the literature, there is still no unified concept or coherent definition of a “smart city” or “informational city.” Most definitions evidently overlap and are not mutually exclusive. Narrowly, some definitions of a smart city are classified by its concern. Specific definitions emphasize green and sustainable cities that focus on environmental traits. Such definitions consider a smart city as an environmental front and hence count urban cities as secure and environmentally green. The environmental front definition is sharply interrelated to natural resources and energy, transport and mobility, and living population conditions (Hall et al., 2000; Martin et al., 2018; Barth et al., 2017; Chourabi et al., 2012).

In a broader sense, many other definitions detect a smart city from an informational perspective, hence talking about the informational city. Giffinger et al. (2007) define smart cities by a list of crucial features, namely, smart economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, and living. Foth et al. (2011) differentiate between urban informatics cities informativeness and informational urbanism cities. They show that urban informatics underlines the responsibilities of people, place, information, and ICT with a focus on cities. Informational urbanism includes not only ICT but also all categories of information and knowledge (tacit knowledge as well as explicit knowledge). Likewise, (Chourabi et al., 2012) define smartness with eight analytical factors, including management and organization, technology, governance, policy context, people and communities, economy, built infrastructure, and natural environment.

While Albino et al. (2015) conclude many definitions of a smart city, Cheu et al. (2015) summarize us the following major definitions as used by foremost industrial associations and standards authorities. The Smart City Council defines a smart city as “digital technology, and intelligent design have been harnessed to create smart, sustainable cities with high-quality living and high-quality jobs” (Smart Cities Council 2014 as cited by Cheu et al., 2015). The British Standards Institute (BSI) defines a smart city as the “effective integration of physical, digital and human systems in the built environment to deliver a sustainable, prosperous and inclusive future for its citizens” (BSI 2014 as cited by Cheu et al. (2015)).

The International Standard Organization (ISO) describes a smart city as “a new concept and a new model, which applies the new generation of information technologies, such as the internet of things, cloud computing, big data and space/geographical information integration, to facilitate the planning, construction, management and smart services of cities” (ISO 2015 as cited by Cheu et al., 2015). The IEEE identifies that a smart city is the one that “brings together technology, government and society to enable the following characteristics: smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart people, smart living, and smart governance” (IEEE 2015 as cited by Cheu et al., 2015). The European Commission states that “smart cities are characterized and defined by a number of factors including sustainability, economic development and high quality of life. Enhancing these factors can be achieved through infrastructure (physical capital), human capital, social capital and/or ICT infrastructure” (EC 2015 as cited by Cheu et al., 2015).

Cheu et al. (2015) proposed their own definition in which “a smart city is characterized by its ability to integrate people, technology and information to create an efficient, sustainable and resilient infrastructure that provides high quality services while improving the quality of life of its residents.” Their definition of a smart city emphasizes two crucial integrated terms (people and technology) with targeted objectives (efficiency of operations and residents’ quality of life). Mohanty (2016) identify a smart city as “a city connecting the physical infrastructure, the information-technology infrastructure, the social infrastructure, and the business infrastructure to leverage the collective intelligence of the city.” Mohanty (2016) report another comprehensive definition of a smart city as “a smart sustainable city is an innovative city that uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) and other means to improve quality of life, the efficiency of urban operations and services, and competitiveness while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social and environmental aspects.”

Other definitions differentiate between an “intelligent” city and a “digital” city. The former focuses on competences and knowledge (Meijer & Bolívar, 2016), and the latter focuses on ICT components and their interconnectivity. Barth et al. (2017) identify that most definitions of a smart city reflect the interface between two major domains. First, the city’s control system and its subsystems of infrastructures, economics, politics and administration, spaces, and location factors. Second, the information behavior of the city’s stakeholders, namely, residents, companies, administrations, visitors, and alike. Saxena and Al-Tamimi (2018) report that “smart cities (are) those innovative urban systems that strategically invest in new technologies and human capital, seeking to improve services effectiveness, quality of life, economic competitiveness, environmental sustainability, and participatory governance” (see Fernandez-Guell et al., 2016).

The World Bank defines smart cities as “a technology intensive city that delivers ‘intelligent’ energy and mobility solutions in cooperation with its citizens” (Muente-Kunigami & Mulas, 2019). The European Commission defines smart cities as “cities using technological solutions to improve the management and efficiency of the urban environment” (European Commission, 2021). Others add the dimension of sustainability to the World Bank definition, implying both the minimization of resource streams and environmental impacts as well as adaptation to a changing global climate (Ringel, 2021; Al-Thani et al., 2018; Berg, 2017). Constro (2021) considers the smart city an urban area that utilizes numerous electronic techniques and sensors to collect data that can be used to enhance operations across the city by efficiently managing the available assets, resources, and services.

In conclusion, smart city definitions emphasize the amalgamation of many factors, including people, technology and information, enhanced services, and sustainable and resilient systems of infrastructure, where all factors stimulate residents’ quality of life (QoL). Most of the above concepts of a smart city indicate significant technological progress during the past two decades. This incorporates the hardware and software designs that cause the development of ICTs worldwide. In fact, the above conceptual development of a smart city indicates the transfer toward the informational city framework. This may justify why most broader concepts of a smart city highlight the informational urbanism notion, which has theoretical applications on the one hand and computer applications on the other hand.

3 What Makes Smart Cities a Necessity?

Smart cities have become very significant by offering preeminent solutions to many environmental, economic, and societal problems in urban groups. The environmental contribution of smart cities is very obvious, as smart city format can avoid the negative impact of energy consumption on the environment. Specifically, the environmental solution concludes the smart cities’ impact toward reducing energy consumption, stabilizing water utilization, controlling carbon emissions, and easing transportation supplies. In this regard, the redesign of energy supply, use of renewable energies, energy efficiency, and transport infrastructure would reduce energy consumption and alleviate global warming. This is one of the most preeminent solutions introduced by smart cities since cities are responsible for 70% of total energy consumption and approximately 75% of greenhouse gas production in Europe (Halleux, 2016; Balta-Ozkan et al., 2014). In other words, cities are consuming 75% of the world’s resources and energy, which generates 80% of greenhouse gases. The same is mirrored in the MENA cities. Qatar is an example of one of the most energy- and carbon-intensive countries worldwide (Ringel, 2021; Charfeddine et al., 2018).

Smart cities also lead to economic optimization through energy savings, raw material consumption, and stabilization of resource flow in urban areas. Economic optimization is expedited by using information and communication technology (ICT), which can improve living conditions, facilitate urban management, or mediate energy and climate problems. Additionally, smart economies support the education, entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, and productivity of city populations (see Constro, 2021; Letnik et al., 2018; Sicilia et al., 2017; Monfaredzadeh & Krueger, 2015; Abellá-García et al., 2015; Jedlin’ski, 2014).

Smart cities and their technology would allow city formers to interact immediately with both community and city infrastructure, where many social problems can be solved within urban groups. It seems this is quite true since smart cities are basically initiated to get used to urban growth and help ease people’s intensification and to effectively address urban issues such as traffic congestion, low housing affordability, and social inequity. The social contribution from a smart city would also offer better quality of life and a higher standard of living for its residents. An additional social benefit is by establishing new economical districts for financial, tourism, and entertainment (Tok et al., 2015).

4 Smart City Structure

A smart city structure is indicated by some smart core constituents, various attributes, core themes, and infrastructure. Those dimensions can be considered smart city features to be distinguished from a conventional city. Cheu et al. (2015) summarize the main features used by foremost industrial associations and standards authorities. The IEEE (2015) refers to six features of a smart city: smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart people, smart living, and smart governance. The European Commission (2015) characterizes smart cities by three features: sustainability, economic development, and quality of life (QoL). ISO (2015) outlines the characteristics that are required for smart cities: “The city will be instrumented; The data from different sources will be available to be easily aggregated; The data will be easily visualized and accessible; Detailed, measurable, real-time knowledge will be available at every level; Analytics and decision-making systems will be used; The city will be automated; The city will have a network of collaborative spaces; and The decision making processes are to be much more open and inclusive.” The Smart Cities Council (https://www.smartcitiescouncil.com/) provides a list of responsibility areas and a list of enablers rather than explicitly providing a list of the features of smart cities.⁴

Mohanty (2016) identifies that a smart city would have nine constituents, four attributes, four core themes, and three infrastructures. The following is a brief overview of the conclusions of Mohanty (2016). The nine constituents of a smart city include: (1) smart citizens, (2) smart infrastructure (e.g., physical, ICT and services), (3) smart building (e.g., different hardware, software, sensors and smart appliances for different automated operations), (4) smart transportation (e.g., Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) as communication and navigation systems between vehicles (car-to-car) and between vehicles and fixed locations (car-to-infrastructure), in addition to the ITS for the rail, water, and air transport systems and their interactions), (5) smart energy (e.g., smart power generation, smart power grids, smart storage, and smart consumption, reflecting the integration of decentralized sustainable energy sources, efficient distribution, and optimized power consumption), (6) smart healthcare (e.g., calls for traditional healthcare to be intelligent, efficient, and sustainable), (7) smart technology (e.g., infrastructure, buildings, physical structures, electrical infrastructure, electronics, communication infrastructure, information technology infrastructure, and software), (8) smart governance, and (9) smart education.

The four attributes of smart cities include sustainability (infrastructure and governance, energy and climate change, pollution and waste, social issues, economics, and health) and quality of life (QoL) in terms of the emotional and financial well-being of citizens. Urbanization (through multiple aspects and indicators such as technology, infrastructure, governance, and economics) and smartness (there are various aspects of city smartness that include the smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, and smart living.). The four core themes for a smart city are society (signifies that the city is for its inhabitants or citizens), economy (signifies that the city is able to thrive with continuous job growth and economic growth), environment (indicates that the city will be able to sustain its function and remain in operation for current and future generations), and governance (suggests that the city is robust in its ability to administer policies and combine together the other elements). The three infrastructures of a smart city are indicated by its physical (buildings, roads, railway tracks, power supply lines, and water supply system), electrical, and digital infrastructure ICT infrastructure. Saxena and Al-Tamimi (2018) summarize the four basics of a smart city, including technology, sustainability, human and social capital, and governance.⁵ A smart city structure can be shown by the below-proposed design.

Source: Constro Facilitator (2021)

5 The Smartness of a City

How smart is a city? The answer to this question may differentiate between an urban city and a smart city per se. As shown in the previous section, smart city structures aim to improve the QoL of residents to several extents, namely, smart ICT devices that improve public services, smart mobility of society, smart environment, smart living, and smart governance. The concern is now how someone can assess the level of a city’s smartness.

Thus far, the overall smartness of a city can be indexed by measurable indicators that have to show the resident’s partialities, in line with the status of the city’s advancement and other country-specific constraints. The city smartness indicators look to examine to what extent a city is close to smart city status, test for the city’s performance results, explore growth and expansion trends, and discover a city’s strengths and weaknesses grounds (see Vázquez-Castañeda and Estrada-Guzman 2014 as cited by Cheu et al., 2015).

Cheu et al. (2015) present most smart city indicators as proposed by several industries and professional interested parties, mainly the BSI, ISO, and the Smart City Council. The BSI indicators of smart cities include “Broadband connectivity,” including “GPS, Wi-Fi and satellite availability; Knowledge workforce; Digital inclusion; Innovation; and Marketing and advocacy.” ISO (2015) has introduced indicators related to life status, including “education, health, recreation, safety, transportation, water, finance, etc.” and environmental sustainability issues such as energy, water, and transport. Throughout its sustainable development of communities standard, the ISO (2015) provides 20 themes related to two sets of city metrics, namely, city services and QoL. City services include Education; Energy; Finance; Recreation; Fire and emergency; Response; Governance; Health; Solid waste; Transportation; Urban planning; Wastewater; and Water. The QoL includes civic engagement; culture; economy; environment; shelter; social equity; and technology and innovation.

The Smart City Council (2014) indicators followed the Cohen (2012) indicators of a smart city. The indicators are organized into six dimensions that are similar to the European categorization, where each of the six dimensions is further divided into almost three targeted indicators as follows: smart economy (entrepreneurship, productivity, local and global interconnectedness); smart people (twenty-first century education, inclusive society, embrace creativity); and smart mobility (mixed-modal access, clean and nonmotorized options, integrated ICT). Smart living (Culturally vibrant and Happy, Safe, Healthy); Smart governance (Enabling supply and demand-side policy, Transparency and open data, ICT and e-government); and Smart environment (Green buildings, Green energy, Green urban planning).

Part of the literature has emphasized indicators that enhance the QoL of residents since this is the ultimate objective of smart city initiatives. Mercer (2014) suggested many QoL index tests for targeted related categories, namely, “Political and social environment; Economic environment; Sociocultural environment; Medical and health considerations; Schools and education; Public services and transport; Recreation; Consumer goods; Housing; and Natural environment.” Pribyl and Horak (2015) focused on individuals’ insights into QoL and concluded that there are discrepancies among individual preferences on what composes QoL.

In conclusion, we argue that there is a crucial need to establish smart city indicators. Not less important is the impact the indicators would have on the QoL of residents. QoL indicators are critical and challenging factors given differences among countries in terms of the history and size of the population, population growth rates, geographical location, availability of domestic resources and economic growth rates, residents’ QoL priorities, and cultural heterogeneity. Additionally, there is a need to ask for city stakeholders’ transparent engagement while structuring smart city initiatives and also while deriving key performance indicators of the city. Stakeholders include government, industry, practitioners, residents, and any other related parties.

Overall, having clear smart city indicators is relevant for the GCC experience. Those countries share similar features in terms of their population culture, geographical location, natural resources, sources of income, development growth, and so on. However, the impact of smart city initiatives on residents’ QoL and economic growth is not very quantifiable among countries. Additionally, special concern has to be directed to the integration among smart city ingredients, namely, industry, IT security, energy, people, health, building, retail, and governance. In fact, having clear smart city indicators may overcome many such concerns and other structural smart city issues.

6 The GCC Experience

The GCC smart city initiatives are already well documented in their national strategic plans, as introduced by Saxena and Al-Tamimi (2018) and Asmyatullin et al. (2020). The proceeding section concludes their findings. For Bahrain, the country lodged the e-government initiative in 2007, which was a strategic segment as per their Vision 2030. The economic vision 2030 focuses on attaining advanced classes of infrastructure and innovation, improving the quality of public services and reducing expenses, creating a safe and secure environment, and “adopting the updated technologies and alike.” Bahrain has a plan of setting up ten smart cities. Information technology is applied for the online transformation of public services that can be acquired by the public through e-government networks, including website portal, open data portal, call centers, booths, smart cards, and mobile applications. The e-government applied the “Cloud First” policy where government affairs are transferred to the cloud.

For Oman, acquiring digital skills, digital literacy, and new technologies was introduced in 2017 as part of the Digital Oman Vision 2030. The e-Oman strategy emphasizes three main key dimensions, namely, IT industry development, society, and e-government services. Among many related looking forward objectives, Digital Oman Vision 2030 provides special emphasis on information technology training and digital literacy, free and open-source software usage endeavors, state online application enhancements, Internet law (eLaws) developments, and the expansion of mobile access to public services. The smart city initiative is verified through the Duqm Special Economic Zone in Oman, which has its main concern toward utilities, tourism, security, smart port solutions, traffic lights, road lighting, smart building management, and waste management. The country is achieving digital transformation by deploying ICT and other enablers of “technological progress.” This is indicated by many initiatives of the Information Technology Authority (ITA), i.e., the introduction of smart government, “Digital Oman Strategy”; “e-transformation plans”; “e-payment gateway”; “National Unified Addressing System”; “e-Health portal”; “Educational portal”; “Open Data initiatives”; and “Oman National Spatial Data Infrastructure (ONSDI).”

Qatar had e-Government 2020 aims to upgrade the efficiency of services provided by the government through several initiatives, including mobile applications, establishing digital applications and cloud infrastructure, etc. The Lusail Smart City is an example of a smart city format where advanced services are provided to residents and visitors by tapping a high-technology environment in addition to handling crisis and disaster situations. As an indication, the building’s centralized cooling system is established, an exterior smart pipe network that transmits waste to recycling plants is there, wastewater is reprocessed to dampen the city’s green spaces, and a driverless and fully automated advanced metro is being erected in Doha to ease the 2020 World Cup activities. The metro transport network acts as a connection nexus between Doha and Lusail Smart City. Smart city formation is expected to continue, given the country’s national vision 2030. The National Vision, 2030 focuses on residents’ QoL requirements, broader technological infrastructure, and how to achieve further progress toward having a “digital economy.” Examples of smart city initiatives include the establishment of Qatar Digital Oasis and Msheireb Downtown Doha and Qatar Rail Development Programs. To accelerate the Qatar Smart Program, the country has manpower training programs that are associated with sophisticated software and hardware applications. The Qatar “smart city vision” is expected to improve people’s standards of living and lifestyles by empowering businesses through the use of an integrated ICT infrastructure.

For Saudi Arabia, there is a deep desire to convert most Saudi cities to smart city format with high-quality services, sophisticated digital infrastructure adaptation, and a developing “digital economy” platform. This is one of the main objectives of the country’s National Transformation Program and the country’s Vision 2030, where many initiatives are considered, such as the digital traffic control system and applying new technologies to infrastructure. Smart city programs are applied to 17 cities in which 72% of the country’s population lives. A very excellent example of a smart city is the city of Neom, with an estimated cost of $500 billion. Some of the looking forward smart projects that are under the concern of the Neom smart city are energy and water supply, travel, digital technology, food processing, biotechnology, advanced production, entertainment, tourism, education, healthcare, and robots. Digital transport systems, solar, and wind energy. Another example is the King Abdullah Economic City with its four areas of concern, i.e., home automation platforms, smart lighting, security, and intelligent energy consumption. The government is interested in having partnerships with the private sector to build up a “smart city” innovation facility that would provide the necessary training sessions to participants who are involved in designing and constructing smart city initiatives.

For the United Arab Emirates (UAE), there is no doubt that the UAE is leading the GCC region in terms of smart city initiatives and smart services. Dubai’s smart government strategy is one of the key examples in this regard. The Smart Dubai initiative was launched in 2014, aiming to deliver and promote an efficient, seamless, safe, and impactful city experience for people. Dubai has an advanced e-government formation, a very highbrow network for solar energy and hybrid gas stations. Areas of concern as per the smart Dubai 2021 strategy include sustainability, advanced technological economy, digital accessibility of social services, digital transportation, clean environment, and ensuring collaboration with the private sector. The Smart Dubai Index is an example of the progress achieved toward assessing smart performance and attaining the economic diversification strategy of the country. Many artificial intelligence infrastructure projects have been developed to meet smart city needs. Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO) is an example of a smart city application that aims to install a charging station for electric vehicles. Dubai Telecommunication is using its “Wi-Fi UAE” initiative to provide Wi-Fi services in public places across the country. The same can be said about Abu Dhabi city. Masdar City is an example of smart city formation, as indicated by several smart initiatives, such as solar energy systems, green building infrastructure, and digital applications. The Zayed smart city project, which was initiated in 2018, is an additional example of smart city formation in the UAE.

In conclusion, all GCC countries share comparable socioeconomic concerns expected from initiating smart cities in the region. They are addressing their urban population pressure issues and forming a knowledge-based economy to meet the progress of the digital world. Keeping in mind that there is variation among the GCC countries in terms of the level of development of digitalization and smart city development. Digital applications are being substantially applied to provide enhanced public services to people and boost urban initiatives in the region. However, it seems that the GCC concern is most likely focusing on IT-led and ICT smart city initiatives (e-government and e-services applications), while other smart city dimensions are not efficiently considered. Additionally, stakeholders (private sector and residents) are not clearly involved in smart city development, leading to doubt about ensuring sustainable results. Table 1 summarizes smart city initiatives in the GCC region.

Table 1 Smart city initiatives in the GCC region

7 The Case of Kuwait

7.1 Smart Cities as Urban Strategic Concerns

Kuwait’s interest in developing smart cities is clearly documented through the New Kuwait Vision 2035, which has seven areas of concern, including “global positioning, developed infrastructure, creative human capital, effective public administration, high-quality health care, sustainable diversified economy, sustainable living environment” (Saxena & Al-Tamimi, 2018). The overall vision aim is to recognize Kuwait as a regional financial, commercial and cultural center. As per Vision 2035, the government creates initiatives to modernize the collection and processing of data and support the development of an information society. Additionally, to date, many e-government services have been introduced, including the online transformation of public services for education, health, infrastructure, etc. Other initiatives include intellectual mobility (traffic management and infrastructure monitoring) and installing smart electricity meters and water meters that would have immediate data transformation.

7.2 Need for Smart Cities

Kuwait, like other GCC countries, is confronting rapid urban growth issues, mainly those related to traffic congestion and housing affordability. Alghais and Pullar (2017) identify that urban modeling would overcome urban growth issues. Otherwise, traffic congestion and housing availability issues will be intensified in the country. Other urban growth issues are also critical for the country, such as alternatives to public transportation, which currently is limited to busses, excessive car reliance usage, and government housing policies. (see Alshalfan, 2013; Al-Nakib, 2014; Dakkak, 2016 cited by Alghais and Pullar (2018)).

As per the literature, Alkandari and Alshailhi (2012) identify that there are three major issues under concern, namely, pollution (sea, groundwater, air, and soil), traffic, and slow on services. The issues can be resolved by having smart cities with smart infrastructure with information and communication technology (ICT). AlEnezi et al. (2018) shows the importance of the Internet of Things (IoT) as a significant application in smart cities, which can be viewed as a key strategy to stimulate industrialization, communication, and urbanization issues. Alghais and Pullar (2018) outline the key issues of urban growth in Kuwait and explore whether new cities under consideration would be a better alternative to overcome those issues. Their interviews with government officials and private sector representatives concluded that traffic congestion and housing shortages are the two main officially recognized crucial urban issues in Kuwait. The two issues are projected to be resolved by initiating new cities given the government’s urban strategic plan, rather than extending already prevailing urban districts. The new cities are supposed to use smart applications to support transport efficiency, i.e., the train transport initiative. Their survey results confirmed the negative impact of urban growth, as indicated by the earlier two issues, namely, traffic congestion and housing shortages. We also confirmed the necessity of stimulating new smart city initiatives as a relevant solution for urban problems in Kuwait.

In this regard, the country deliberates urban development and undertakes planning alterations by initiating urban cities. The objective is to overcome most, if not all, urban population pressures. Kuwait strategy 2035 emphasizes this objective, where the country aims to be cogitated as a regional financial, commercial, and cultural midpoint, as reported earlier.

7.3 Smart City Initiatives

The Saad Al-Abdullah smart city initiative is one part of the new Kuwait 2035 plan. The plan is a group of measures aiming to boost the economy over the forthcoming years by reducing economic reliance on oil as the sole source of public revenues. Additionally, the plan aims to signify Kuwait’s promising economic future by 2035 by building the country as a hub for being a regional financial, trade, tourism, and commercial midpoint. This would motivate more local and regional investments (see Smart City Hub, 2017; Urban Gateway, 2018).

In 2019, the Saad Al-Abdullah City was introduced as a smart city initiative that cost $4 billion. The city is the first smart and environmentally friendly city in Kuwait (green and smart city). The city project covers 50 square kilometers and is expected to accommodate 400,000 people and apply the internet network and information and communication technologies (ICTs) as connecting mechanisms for its services and roads (Jazzar, 2019). The city design format is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

Saad Al-Abdullah city

The city structure merged between smart technologies and classic urbanization. The city is designed to avoid visual pollution and to be connected to electrical energy through solar cells. The use of specific building supplies is to be within the financial ability of the citizens to afford (METenders, 2022). For implementation purposes, the city project is being initiated in partnership with South Korea, where the city is planned to be designed as the South Korean city of Bundang (see AlEnezi et al., 2018; News.kuwaittimes.net, 2016; Alghais & Pullar, 2018). Emphasis is placed on intellectual mobility, which focuses on traffic management and infrastructure monitoring. Installing smart electricity and water meters that transmit data on time is an additional example of e-government services for 2018. Apart from Saad Al-Abdullah, eight more “smart cities” would be launched in due time.

8 Limitation Confronting Kuwait’s Smart Cities Initiatives

As a crucial part of Kuwait Vision 2035, smart city initiation and transformation of Kuwait’s cities into secure and digitalized sustainable cities in the future would require the following. First, significant coordination between all stakeholders, including the government, private sector, smart city solution providers, and engaging the community population. Second, provide stakeholders with more clarifications around the advantages of having smart cities and increase their awareness toward technology challenges and privacy concerns, digital security with coverage, and capacity. Third, introduce the relevant legislation, policies, funding sources, and business models to develop the existing infrastructure for water, energy, and transportation systems. Fourth, we show how the current smart city and the proposed eight future smart city initiatives would contribute positively to overcoming the challenges related to traffic and congestion, boosting economic development opportunities, enhancing public safety initiatives, achieving economic and environmental sustainability and transparency, and improving peoples’ quality of life and standards of living. The abovementioned challenges, aside from others, should be addressed to benefit from smart cities’ introduction to the community.

9 Conclusions

The growing urbanization rate across the world has initiated the need to present the smart city format with the intention of overcoming urban growth challenges. According to the urban modeling perspective, the smart city design would be more resilient, economically and environmentally sustainable, and more efficient in providing services that would lead to better quality of life (QoL) for residents. For the GCC region, the issue of the growing urbanization rate is not less important in comparison to the rest of the worldwide countries. As urbanization is expanding together with its confronts, the GCC countries are deeply interested in initiating smart cities and adopting digitalized economies. These initiatives, and alike, are now becoming vision-oriented initiatives for urban management processing in the GCC region.

Testing for the objectives of the current study is motivated by many attributes. Smart city initiatives are still in their go-forward stages in GCC countries, and the impact of those initiatives toward overcoming urban population pressures is not evident thus far. Additionally, smart cities are supposed to achieve integration between people, technology, and information, hence boosting the quality of life (QoL) of residents in terms of education, health, transportation, public and private services, public safety, and the like; however, this is not approved thus far as per the current status of the GCC countries.

Overall, the current study identifies differences among smart city concepts, while smart city structure can be indicated by some smart core constituents, various attributes, core themes, and infrastructure. To judge how smart is a city, the study concludes that there is variation among regions regarding what proxies can be applied to indicate the level of city smartness concern. For the GCC experience, including Kuwait, smart city initiatives are already well documented in their national urban strategic plans. For Kuwait, transforming cities into secure and digitalized sustainable cities would require overcoming significant limitations that may include coordination between all stakeholders, increasing stakeholders’ awareness toward technology challenges and privacy concerns, digital security with coverage and capacity, introducing the relevant legislation, policies, funding sources, and business models to develop the existing infrastructure for water, energy, and transportation systems, etc., and showing how the current smart city and the proposed eight future smart city initiatives would contribute positively to overcoming the challenges related to traffic and congestion, boosting economic development opportunities, enhancing public safety initiatives, achieving economic and environmental sustainability and transparency, and improving peoples’ quality of life and standards of living.