Planning for Future Urban Services in the Smart City Era: Integrating E-services in Urban Planning Process

Information and communication technology (ICT) has transformed how we live our lives and the way we interact in different contexts. Benefits of ICT and its upcoming efficiencies (i.e. energy efficiency) are becoming the heart of many public services’ reforms which have influenced the time, distance and space concepts. At present, not only there is a lack of clarity about what high-quality ICTbased urban services look like, and an urgent need to articulate a clear vision of ‘better’ services, but also the integration of this new transformations in spatial urban planning (e.g. service delivery planning) has not been comprehensively considered. Therefore, the main debate in this paper comprises of simplifying the e-services delivery process and architecture and its integration to the spatial planning process. Illustration of the resulted benefits of such integration is another outcome of the paper. This paper aims at developing a conceptual framework of e-services and its impact on urban public service delivery in line with developing an integrated process of e-services and spatial urban planning. The main outcomes of the research are comprised of an integrated conceptual service delivery process as well as strategies to achieve and optimize such integration.