Smart cities and innovative urban management: Perspectives of integrated technological solutions in urban environments

The increasing urbanization in a poorly planned way accentuates the imbalance between the population's needs and the organized development in urban spaces. The present study is based on the development of a situational diagnosis in the scope of a smart city, for the contextualization of potential opportunities for actions and innovation strategies in urban spaces. This article presents a literature overview covering the innovative actions developed in the scope of smart cities in scientific publications. Furthermore, the scope of the study is identifying innovation initiatives in the performance of actions and solutions for urban spaces. A literature review was developed supported by mappings, couplings, and diagrams, through the use of VOSViewer and SciMat software, and 115 articles were selected and analyzed, considering the articles based on the criterion of the coefficient of the number of citations concerning the year of publication. In the literature overview developed, it was found that the research within the scope of smart cities has been deepened over the years, with the evolution of the number of words related to the theme in the period from 2014 to 2021, as the advance in the number of publications from 2018 is noticeable, which highlights the increase in popularity regarding the topic, as well as its current relevance. The study identified thematic axes with an emphasis on technology and innovation, environment, urbanism, energy, governance, mobility, and accessibility. The results contributed by assembling innovative smart city actions and practices in an interrelated way with technology, innovation, and market-oriented constructs aimed to reach urban demands, as well as the development of innovative solutions between public institutions and business organizations to integrate urban spaces.