General Contractor Business Model for Smart Cities

1On Smart Cities: A Literature Review

Thus far, we have established – with a fair amount of confidence – that functional geography has gradually come to prevail, overshadowing the significance and governance associated with political geography. We have also highlighted that global urbanization is putting serious pressure on big cities in terms of their ability to accommodate additional inhabitants, and that this pressure is being passed onto the construction industry which is currently hastening developments: smart cities. Furthermore, we have shed light on the importance of promoting macro-level connectivity as a means of boosting economic growth and sponsoring environmental sustainability and political stability¹.

Besides macro-level connectivity, we endeavor in this work to demonstrate that connectivity is critical at the micro-level too (Hanna 2009). Clearly, there is now a need to institute strong micro-level connectivity (within the construction industry) and rethink existing stakeholder management approaches, for the most part to improve stakeholder engagement throughout the various stages of the CPLC (Construction Project Lifecycle). In fact, establishing strong links between construction actors – maintaining open channels of communication at all times – has become a prerequisite to successful construction projects. This is palpable – in our opinion – because stakeholders often have distinct interests and concerns, and therefore strong connections at the micro-level ...