The Vulnerability of cities as the main centers of population concentration to natural and human threats, along with the complexity and uncertainty of these threats, underscores the necessity of identifying smart solutions and strategies to deal with crises. Furthermore, utilizing smart city capacities and initiatives is essential to improve urban resilience. Studies indicate that smart cities have increasingly become a fundamental solution for dealing with crises and strengthening urban resilience. So far, various studies have been conducted in this field with the aim of explaining the relationship between smart city strategies and urban resilience, combining their commonalities, providing models and frameworks for adopting smart approaches, and using smart city technologies, strategies, and initiatives to promote urban resilience against crises. The aim of the present study is to investigate the role and capacities of smart cities in promoting urban resilience against crises, through a detailed review of theoretical literature and previous studies conducted in this field.
The present study is of an applied type based on its purpose and descriptive-analytical in nature. In this research, using a qualitative method based on content analysis of the results of previous studies, the role and capacities of smart cities in improving urban resilience have been examined. For this purpose, information and data were first collected from library resources, which included scientific articles and chapters from books in the common field of smart city and urban resilience. Then, through qualitative content analysis and a detailed review of the results of the extracted studies, data and information were analyzed. For this purpose, research data, which included scientific articles and chapters from books in the common field of smart city and urban resilience, were initially collected from domestic and foreign databases by simultaneously searching for the two keywords “smart city” and “urban resilience” and applying the time period 2015-2025. The results of this search yielded 286 documents, which were reduced to 132 by removing duplicate documents and items unrelated to the research topic. After that, irrelevant items were removed by reviewing the subject and abstract of the studies and matching them with the topic of the article. The final screening was based on reviewing the entire content of the documents, and after removing inappropriate articles, the final dataset of this study was reduced to 29 documents. Analyzing the qualitative content of previous studies allowed for achieving a comprehensive understanding of the role and capacities of smart cities in promoting urban resilience by utilizing reliable sources and analyzing these studies. This research approach provided the basis for identifying key patterns, analyzing existing trends, and assessing research gaps. In this way, a better understanding of how these two concepts interact could be gained and more effective strategies could be provided to increase urban resilience in the context of smart cities. The main goal of the present study is to examine the role and capacities of smart cities in improving urban resilience in the face of crises by analyzing the relevant results from previous studies. The research questions are: 1) What is the role and capacities of smart cities in promoting urban resilience? 2) What conceptual or research gaps exist in this area that should be addressed in future studies?
The results indicate that smart cities can play a key role in strengthening urban resilience. Planning in the areas of intelligence and utilizing smart city technologies, strategies, and tools provides the ability to significantly enhance the resilience of cities against environmental, social, and economic crises and instability. Due to its unique potential and capacities, the smart city plays a significant role in promoting the resilience of cities against hazards and disasters. By utilizing the capacities of smart cities, such as skilled human resources, the use of advanced technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), smart robots, crisis informatics, etc., the resilience of cities against risks and crises can be significantly improved. The capacities and potentials of smart cities have enabled cities to increase their flexibility, absorption capacity, recovery capability, preparedness, and responsiveness to crises and hazards. Consequently, this has led to the emergence of a new approach called the “resilient smart city.” This approach entails that a city adopts smart city solutions and initiatives, such as information and communication technology (ICT) and other smart tools, to enhance its resilience to hazards and disasters.
So far, models and frameworks related to the resilient smart city have been presented in studies conducted in this field. Analysis of these models and frameworks also shows that the smart city, in three main factors: technical-technological, human-social, and institutional-management, can improve urban resilience characteristics such as planning and preparedness, absorption capacity, recovery capability, and adaptation rate, and helps enhance the resilience of a city. Ultimately, the development and application of this approach can pave the way for development of a smart, resilient, and sustainable cities capable of confronting a complex and uncertain future.
Based on the results, two important gaps in previous studies in this field have been identified that can be the subject of future research. The first gap identified is the one-dimensionality of the studies, with greater emphasis placed on the technological dimension of smart cities and its role in promoting urban resilience. In contrast, two other key factors, namely human-social and institutional-management, have received less attention. In this regard, it is suggested that future studies, by adopting a multidimensional approach, examine the role of the human-social and institutional-management factors of the smart city, along with the technological factors, in promoting urban resilience in order to explain the concept of a resilient smart city more comprehensively and clarify its real dimensions. The second gap is related to the generality of the models and frameworks presented in relation to the resilient smart city; the models presented in this field primarily focus on the relationship between the main factors or dimensions of the smart city and the characteristics of the resilient city, and this relationship has not been made more comprehensively and in detail at the level of indicators. Therefore, it can be said that there is a lack of a comprehensive model of a resilient smart city in which the relationship between smart city and urban resilience is comprehensively addressed in all dimensions and characteristics of both topics, and the explanation of this relationship is provided in detail at the level of criteria and indicators. Therefore, it is recommended that future research develop a comprehensive and indicator-based model of a resilient smart city and test this model in the form of study samples (cities), so that the interaction between different dimensions and indicators of urban intelligence and resilience can be analyzed more accurately and practically.