The Smart City Playbook: Lessons From Urban Pioneers

This book explores a fascinating paradox about a collection of Middle Eastern cities: Madinah, Doha, Al Khobar, Manama, AlUla, and Muscat. As ancient as civilization itself, their smart city journeys are remarkably young. They’ve built from scratch, unencumbered by legacy infrastructure or outdated systems, meaning that understanding what citizens need is easier.

That said, as readers of this book will find out, their knowledge is hard-won and battle-tested: they’ve asked the right questions, set the right priorities, and found the right ways to engage their citizens. The detail of exactly how is what Arturo Bris, alongside co-authors Aline Garibian-Ballaman and Alistair Packer, shares in these pages.

The cities explored follow clear top-down paths, making them ideal templates for mayors embarking on their own journeys. The authors trace the governance architecture from central government through provincial authorities down to municipal smart-city units, revealing the power structures that turn vision into reality.

Fascinatingly, the Middle East moves at a velocity that makes other regions seem glacial, taking the reader on a tour de force of national visions and large-scale investment projects underpinned by clear political mandates for diversification, sustainability, and digital governance.

For other developing economies, the cities in this book are examples of how latecomers can leapfrog traditional urbanization stages by adopting integrated digital systems and transparent management practices from the start. Progress comes quickly when you use technology to solve everyday problems, not to showcase modernity.

Bris’s stance is clear. The next generation of urban policy demands a new breed of leadership: technically literate, economically strategic, and ethically grounded. Policymakers who understand that the goal isn’t efficiency alone but dignity too, nor is it connectivity for its own sake but connections that strengthen community, will particularly enjoy this book.

This is the fourth Smart City case study compilation book published by the WCC. The others are: Sixteen Shades of Smart: How Cities Can Shape Their Own Future, Cities in a Time of Global Emergencies, and Prosperous and Inclusive Cities.