Work

Integrating the smart-city-brain framework for carbon neutrality, resilient and sustainable cities

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The Smart City have made significant progress in addressing urban issues such as traffic congestion, energy consumption, and environmental pollution. However, there are still critical theoretical and practical gaps in the evolution towards a higher-level Smart City Brain (SCB). This article proposes a comprehensive SCB framework to drive urban development towards carbon neutrality, resilient and sustainability. Current urban development faces three core challenges. First, the fragmentation of urban data systems leads to difficulties in cross-departmental collaboration. Second, the development goals are inconsistent with the requirements of carbon neutrality, resulting in a contradiction where efficiency is improved but carbon emissions increase. Third, social equity and public health are neglected, which may exacerbate algorithmic bias and unequal service distribution. To address these limitations, this study proposes three solution paths. Integrate multi-source data systems to build a unified urban deep perception and collaborative management platform. Embed carbon neutrality-related work into the core of algorithm design and decision-making to ensure that the control system serves the emission reduction goals. Incorporate social equity and public health into the design principles of the SCB to promote a people-oriented urban governance concept. This transformative approach will drive urban development from the traditional efficiency optimization orientation to a new development paradigm that integrates sustainability, equity, and resilience, providing theoretical support and practical paths for the global intelligent transformation of cities. • A Smart-City-Brain framework is proposed to achieve higher-level urban development. • The framework integrates fragmented data systems into unified urban intelligence. • Carbon neutrality is embedded as a core objective in Smart-City-Brain algorithms. • Social equity and public health are incorporated into Smart-City-Brain decision-making.

Source: Journal of Urban Management

DOI: 10.1016/j.jum.2026.04.001