# A Comprehensive Survey on the Societal Aspects of Smart Cities
## 2 Smart Cities Dimensions
### Smart Governance  
Various governments already provide online services to allow citizens to perform tasks that previously required face-to-face interaction, with some being completely switched to online-only. However, ICT services might also be used to deepen democratic values. As settlements develop from villages to towns to cities and to modern-day metropolises, it becomes increasingly difficult for citizens, especially those with lower socio-economic status, to make their voices heard by authorities. This presents a problem for a city's authorities administrations, since without understanding the needs of their citizens, a lot of time and resources can be wasted on projects and infrastructure that are inefficient, unwanted, or just unnecessary, which leads to dissatisfaction from a city's population. As such, they require a way to gather information about the needs and wants of their citizens. Citizen participation is a necessary component of a strong democracy, but even more autocratic governments disregard their citizens' problems and opinions at their own peril. Smart city technologies enable citizens to share their ideas and problems directly with their city's governance much more easily. Possible examples are the SmartCitizen app [155], which offers a mobile social network (MSN) platform for its users, and the Smarticipate platform, which aims to enable citizens to participate directly in the planning and management of their city [156]. This type of application allows cities' authorities to accurately assess citizens' sentiment and to easily ascertain which problems are more preeminent and prioritize resources accordingly. Moreover, a city can also create a mobile sensing network at a cost comparable to that of implementing and hosting a mobile application and curating the data collected. This network can complement the city's regular network, providing a more comprehensive picture of the city's status [157]. In a representative democracy, individuals do not actively participate in policymaking, instead voting to elect representatives, who will represent them and their like-minded peers in a forum with the representatives of the other opposing ideas. This allows for all groups with views on an issue, even minority ones, to have a say in how policy is enacted, while still enabling for speedy resolution even in large populations, but has several inherent weaknesses [158; 159; 160]. For instance: (i) elected officials are individuals and thus, if not properly safeguarded by laws, may enact policies that serve their own interests rather than the needs of the people; (ii) it is easier for individuals or minority groups with significant power (e.g., economic, social, or religious) to use it to influence officials to enact policies that benefit them rather than the rest of society, a considerably harder proposition in a direct democracy, ironically due to the large number of people involved; (iii) partisanship can occur, where people support their group and their policies independently of their effects and can result in a lack of compromise between groups. It can also lead to situations where only a few or, in extreme cases, one of those groups has any real power; (iv) the people and elected officials ignoring critical issues or being manipulated to do so due to the overwhelming amount of information that is often difficult to comprehend and process and may cause people to fail to actually reach a decision or be unable to understand all the options available. Smart governance and related concepts such as eGovernment or eDemocracy combine the use of ICTs with government processes to surpass the representativeness difficulties and to improve transparency [161]. The objective is to bridge the gap between a representative democracy and a direct democracy by combining their advantages while minimizing or eliminating their disadvantages. One way to achieve this is by creating digital spaces where citizens can participate in active discussions of issues.