A Smart City Maturity Assessment Model for South African Municipalities

Abstract

Smart cities have become a fashionable trend and created much excitement internationally, as well as in South Africa. However, the developing countries of the South can ill-afford the required investment, and mostly do not have the skills or the infrastructure to achieve this status. This paper employs a literature review to identify key elements which are pervasive in smart cities, and packages these into a localised maturity assessment model for South African municipalities, to self-assess their maturity on the continuum towards achieving smart status. The value of the maturity model, however, is not the model or the baseline assessment, but the information that is consolidated and informs an achievable roadmap for every municipality, from metropolitan to small rural administrations, to embark on a customised smartification journey, towards smarter city status within their own context.