The recovery plans at the time of COVID-19 foster the journey toward smart city development and sustainability: a narrative review

This paper stipulates that the short-term impacts and long-term implications of COVID-19 will boost the realization of the smart city concept in societies through the employments of innovative emergent solutions. By referring to the recent activities and measures and the narrative review of the literature, we have shown that the integration of service offerings to the product supply can lead to new schemes for smart technology employment in the value delivery, appearing various benefits of the customers and reduction of the time lag for value delivery, in accordance with the needs of the societies and contexts of the crisis. The paper discusses the practices that emerged during the pandemic that will influence on smartness in the cities and resiliency. Upon the study of the new strategies and implementation of recovery plans, we have identified the driving force for development of smart cities concept and have studied specification of the involved elements in sustainable supply chain management, innovative waste management practices, and the new sustainable smart mobility. Then, it concludes that the new approaches redefine the “new normality” toward the smart city development and remarks on the consequences of the reconstruction policies for the realization of resiliency plans and sustainability.