Smart cities as hubs: Connect, collect and control city flows

Regardless the Smart City (SC) broad scope, which ranges from a service-oriented ecosystem with the use of almost all the emerging technologies to a resilient urban environment, practice shows that the SC is mostly capitalized for utility upgrades, urban renovation, and real-time city monitoring. Moreover, recent city implementations register attempts to utilize technology for controlling the entire city flows. The aim of this communication paper is to discuss the SC hubness and more specifically the fact that the SC can become a “hub” that collects, processes, and transmits data; brings together people to co-design and evolve; and controls service, material and people flows in all city types. As a result, this paper defines the role, the uses and the architecture of this “SC-as-a-Hub” operation labeled “SCHub”, which can standardize and control all the city flows. •Explains how smart cities are being transformed to hubs for data, service, people and material flows•Conceptualizes the smart city as a hub (SCHub)•Defines the SCHub's architecture and architecture framework•Presents use-cases that explain the SCHub's operation•Introduces some of the expected benefits from the SCHub's role