# A Comprehensive Survey on the Societal Aspects of Smart Cities
## 2 Smart Cities Dimensions
### Smart Economy
This makes the city more attractive for new residents and investors, as well as a more attractive trading partner and tourist destination. No man is an island, and the same can be said of cities. Without connections with other places, a city will suffer, see its economic and growth potential stagnate, and in the worst case, disappear entirely. Therefore, connecting with other cities is a key aspect for good economic conditions [82]. This can be achieved by closer integration of infrastructure and information between cities. Integrating different research institutions enables research problems to be tackled with different perspectives and more options [83] and also allows for the results to be spread widely much faster and thus more quickly implemented. Furthermore, by integrating processes and infrastructures, it allows for outside companies to more readily invest in a city due to the increased ease of trading, entering a foreign market, and making use of local infrastructures [84; 85]. In this respect, to increase the required truthfulness of the interactions, blockchain has also been used to provide improvements on organizational performance [86]. All of this brings us to the concept of a digital economy, where more and more the traditional components of the economy are transformed or replaced by ICTs. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores are replaced by digital stores on the Internet, people use remote work instead of physical offices, advertising moves from traditional venues to websites and social media, and the sale of fully digital products (e.g., e-books and video games) and services [87]. The advent of the digital economy has made the storage of large quantities and varieties of products even more of a necessity than before. Smart warehousing is used to improve what used to be a necessary cost in the production chain but is now considered essential. Modern warehouses are not limited to storing products but are also the location where those products are distributed from. Smart tracking of inventory through RFID and automated decision-making systems and using algorithms to determine storage location of products to maximize space allocation and minimize retrieval time enable efficient operations at reduced costs. Additionally, robotic and automated systems also allow for automation of labor-intensive tasks, such as the loading and unloading of products and their retrieval and storage in inventory [88; 89]. Finally, it is important to have laws and institutions in place because revenue-generating companies aim to be profitable rather than serve the public good. It must be understood that this is not to be taken as a negative or a positive, but simply as a statement of fact. In a future where automation has made human labor redundant, then the economy shifts from one of scarcity to one where the distribution of wealth is the main problem. In this society, individuals no longer have the power to distribute wealth through their labor, resulting in wealth being concentrated among a select few (e.g., companies, corporations, or governments). While it may seem that those few would have no issue distributing their vast wealth to the masses, historical evidence and the rise of income inequality suggest otherwise unless proper measures are taken [90; 91].