This book discusses the concept and practice of a smart metropolitan region, and how smart cities promote healthy economic and spatial development. It highlights how smart metropolitan regional development can energize, reorganize and transform the legacy economy into a smart economy; how it can help embrace Information and Communications Technology (ICT); and how it can foster a shared economy. In addition, it outlines how the five pillars of the third industrial revolution can be achieved by smart communities. In addition, the book draws on 16 in-depth city case studies from ten countries to explore the state of the art regarding the smart economy in smart cities - and to apply the lessons learned to shape smart metropolitan economic and spatial development.

Professor T. M. Vinod Kumar has 48 years of professional experience in the areas of Urban and Regional Planning, Urban and Regional Infrastructure, Urban Environmental Management, Application of Geographic Information System (GIS) in Urban Planning, Models in Planning, Urban Design and Smart Cities. He has gained vast consultancy experience in urban and rural development, infrastructure, tourism and healthcare throughout India, and in new town planning and development, city centre and housing planning in Malaysia. He has worked in Bhutan, China, Pakistan, Nepal, e.g. as a Regional Program Coordinator. Academically he has worked at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi as a Professor, Head of the Urban Planning Department, Head of the Centre for Analysis and Systems Studies, Head of the Centre for Urban Studies, and finally as Dean of Studies for the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. He has also worked as a Planner-Engineer with the Ford Foundation, India. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Bandung Institute of Technology Indonesia, and now at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut. He is the author of many books and journal articles, and has been a Project Manager for many consulting projects in India and abroad.