This chapter explains what a smart city is, describes key components of a smart city, summarizes approaches to creating new smart cities, and lists the issues smart cities are currently facing. One of the key issues in smart city development is active citizen engagement in municipal decision-making. However, citizens participate mainly indirectly by providing feedback on social networks. This chapter explores both the current state and emerging trends. Next, the concept of cognitive cities as a school of thought focused on preserving human agency in municipal decision-making is presented. The information provided helps the reader understand the context of the work presented in the following chapters and justifies the decision-making framework (from text posted by citizens to understanding) proposed in this book.