THRESHOLD VALUES OF THE “SMART” CITIES DIGITALIZATION

Abstract

The article deals with the problems of defining the threshold values of the "smart" cities digitalization. One problem in identifying the urban environment digitalization level and classifying a city as a smart one is that the existing assessment methods do not allow for identification whether a city under assessment can be referred to as a smart one.
The methodological basis of the research includes a systematic logical analysis of the published papers from the Web of Science and Scopus global databases. The work reveals chief approaches to assessing the urban environment digitalization in the framework of a "smart" city model development, and identifies main problems and limitations of a specific approach to assessing the urban environment digitalization level. The author's approach is proposed to identify the thresholds of the urban environment digitalization on the basis of the symbiosis of the component and evolutionary approaches to "smart" cities assessment. Overcoming the digital threshold values means that most interaction operations between individuals in a given city are based on digital technologies only. The theoretical basis for identifying the urban environment digitalization thresholds is the matrix for assessing the "smart" cities development.
The theoretical importance of the research is the developed approaches to assess the modern cities digitalization level. The practical significance of the research is in the potential further research of smart management in a digital society.