Citizens' Perception of Smart Cities: A Case Study

The 21st century is considered to be "The Century of Cities". By the end of this century, over 80% of the global population is expected to be living in urban areas. To become smart, a city should develop an approach of services that will focus mainly on citizens to be the primary beneficiaries of the services offered by a Smart City. In this work, we present through a survey of 545 participants, the citizens' perception about the smart city concept and reveal the Greek and Cypriot citizens' level of knowledge regards to a Smart City's actions, applications, and elements. The final results of this study revealed several interesting outcomes. Firstly, this study showed that Cypriot citizens seem to know better what a "Smart City" is compared to Greek citizens, secondly, the study revealed that a large number of participants do not believe that any efforts have been made in their city in order to become "smart" and finally, regards to the most important challenges for the development of a smart city, the survey disclose that the cooperation of the private and public sector is the biggest challenge that needs to be tackled so as citizens can move towards a "smarter" future.