Resumo

Cities generate around 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Giles-Corti, Lowe & Arundel, 2020). They are getting bigger and faster and for the first time in history, more than half of the world's population lives in them (Bibri, 2021). To implement innovations in the processes of restructuring cities, one of the barriers faced is financial, as there is a lack of capacity for public investment and, also, unavailability of private funding. Therefore, funding smart solutions requires an innovative approach to funding, budgets, sources of capital and business models (Blanck & Ribeiro, 2021).

This article aims to understand the connections between studies on the topic “funding sustainable and smart cities”, through an analysis of publications in international journals. For this, the bibliometric method was used considering articles published in the Web of Science database from 1997 to 2020.

Building smart and sustainable cities is one of the goals of municipal governments around the world, aiming to mitigate the effects of climate, population increase and depredation of nature on the planet. However, funding the transition to smart and sustainable cities is a challenge. Thus, some cities have been experimenting with innovative financial mechanisms. In terms of funding for energy efficiency, some move faster than their national governments, however, overall, the financial competence for cities to transition is inadequate (Bai et al., 2020).

From the exploratory factor analysis of the co-citations, four sets of variables, called factors, were identified that influenced the reflections on the financing of sustainable and smart cities. Using the exploratory factor analysis of the pairing, it was possible to identify six factors that demonstrate the research in progress and, consequently, the trends of future research: Smart Cities: past, present and future; Smart growth; Park access; Smart Cities initiatives; Urban forests; and Evaluation of green spaces.

The studies of factors generated in co-citations (based on references from 565 primary studies) and pairing (based on 565 primary studies) generated a research framework that shows the evolution of research on financing for healthy and smart cities.

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