Financing of Smart City Projects

This chapter deals with financing smart city projects, which generally constitutes a significant barrier to smart city transformation. The chapter is organized into four sections. The first section presents the emergence and evolution of the smart city concept, and then it discusses the barriers facing this concept with an emphasis on financing smart city projects. The second section highlights the city challenges and the need for a smart city transformation to respond to citizens’ demand for modernized services and the legally binding international treaties on climate change. The third presents the smart city concept with an emphasis on the capacity of the city to address city challenges and the architecture of the smart city system. The last section describes the need and financing for the main sectors of the smart city: communication infrastructures, data infrastructures, public infrastructures and services, and private infrastructures and services. The chapter shows that considering city challenges and the city’s role in global challenges, smart city transformation becomes a must. Smart city financing could be covered by regional and green funds, savings related to reducing energy consumption, and increased competitiveness gained by digital transformation.