THE ROLE OF SMART CITY APPLICATIONS IN ENSURING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF CITIES

Abstract

With the rapid growth of cities and the increase in urban population, the needs and problems of people living in cities are growing. People living in the city want the opportunities offered in other cities to be offered to them, and they want to benefit from the opportunities of different qualities and characteristics. Solving the problems that are concentrated in areas such as electricity, water, transportation, environment, health, infrastructure works that arise in every field in cities cannot produce solutions with traditional methods anymore, and the solutions are short-term. For this reason, the solution of the problems that arise in the cities is started to be presented by taking into account the developments in science and technology in the presentation of the services brought to the cities. In a digitalizing world, cities also have to keep up with the digital process. In order to ensure the sustainability of cities and to offer more permanent solutions to the needs of society, the digitalization of cities is now important and becomes a necessity for urban management. Taking advantage of technological opportunities in urban service delivery is not a choice; is now mandatory. Because with the use of technology in service delivery, it contributes to better seeing the problems, bringing more effective solutions with limited resources, and solving the problems of the people of the city faster. In this changing process, local governments are now abandoning traditional service delivery models in urban service delivery and developing new methods and new models. These applications have revealed the smart city application in the world and in our country. Academic interest in smart cities is also growing rapidly. Smart technology, smart people, or smart collaboration as defining features of smart cities offer a transformative or incremental perspective on changes in urban management. In this context, the aim of the study is; to examine smart city application examples in the world and in our country. In addition, the problems experienced in smart city applications have been revealed and suggestions have been developed in this regard. The situation of smart city applications has been revealed with a qualitative study.