Strategic digital city: Concept, model, and research cases

Cities, in addition to being physical, are also digital, requiring the use of information technology resources and strategies, information, and services to make appropriate decisions. The objective is to present the strategic digital city (SDC) concept and project model and its research considering the subprojects: city strategies; city information; public services to citizens; and information technology resources applied in cities. The research methodology comprises approaches mixing techniques in respective phases, including bibliometrics assignment, and model theory applied in SDC cases with more than 11 doctoral, 100 master’s, undergraduate, scientific initiation, and postdoctoral program orientations obtained from more than 300 cities since 2003. The results showed that the SDC can be understood as a social project of public policy and is on the city managers’ agenda, as demonstrated in the 8 cases researched and in the more than 86 publications in different scientific international journals in the recent decade. The conclusion reiterates the importance of the participatory and democratic SDC original project accepted to contribute to the proper city management and the citizens’ quality of life expansion, including infrastructure, policy, and city development. Then, the SDC contemporary concept and model have been maintained regularly over the 10 years.