A Comprehensive Review of Smart City Studies focusing on Research Fields, Purpose, and Methods

Abstract

This study is attempted to identify the trends of smart city studies in various disciplines by conducting meta-analysis. Data collection was used research information sharing service which is the largest academic research information service in Korea and the analysis focused on the academic background, research purpose, and methods of smart city studies. The results of this study are as follows. First of all, the ‘Society’ was the most studied field of smart city studies and followed by ‘Human Science and Technology’, ‘Artifact’ and ‘Human’. These results show that smart city is widely accepted in the fields of science technology, humanities and social sciences, and most of the studies are integrating various academic fields. Next, it could be confirmed that the purpose of smart city research was mostly for practical purpose and various methodological approaches have not yet been attempted in terms of research methodology. These results can be interpreted as the fact that the smart city of Korea is performed by the government or local government and smart city research is still in its early stage. Finally, limitations and future direction of research were discussed.