  In response to challenges posed by urbanization, David Bollier from the
University of Southern California raised a new idea for city planning: a
comprehensive network and applications of information technologies. IBM later
echoed the idea and initiated its Smart Planet vision in 2008. After that, the
smart city concept was quickly adopted by major cities throughout the world,
and it has gradually evolved into a strategic choice by ambitious cities. This
paper looks into the smart city trend by reviewing how the concept of smart
city was proposed and what the essence of a smart city is. More specifically,
the driving forces of the smart city development in China are investigated, and
the key differences of smart cities between China and other countries are
summarized. Finally, four big challenges to build future smart cities are
discussed.
