TEM Journal. Volume 8, Issue 4, Pages 1247-1251, ISSN 2217-8309, DOI: 10.18421/TEM84-20, November 2019. TEM Journal – Volume 8 / Number 4 / 2019. 1247 Smart City: From the Metaphor of Urban Development to Innovative City Management Daniyar Mukhametov Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia Abstract – The article deals with the evolution of the concept of smart city. Smart city can be examined as the modern metaphor of urban development that is connected with the introduction of information technologies to address a wide range of governance issues. The innovation of the smart city is based on the increased role of human capital, inclusive institutions and cooperation of key participants within innovation ecosystem. The article proposes the use of a three-level model of urban benchmarking, which can contribute to the system self-organization. The future of the smart city projects will depend on ensuring cybersecurity, human and social capital, modern engineering ideas and competent project activities. Keywords – Smart city, Digital technologies, City benchmarking, Human capital, Urban development, Innovation ecosystem. 1. Introduction Technological progress actualizes the implementation of digital technologies in management processes. In particular, extensive discussions are devoted to the possibility of their use in the context of urban management optimization: theoretical preconditions are reduced to the fact that modern information and communication technology can ensure efficient management. DOI: 10.18421/TEM84-20 https://dx.doi.org/10.18421/TEM84-20 Corresponding author: Daniyar Mukhametov, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia Email: mukhametovdaniyar@gmail.com Received: 30 June 2019. Revised: 25 October 2019. Accepted: 03 November 2019. Published: 30 November 2019. © 2019 Daniyar Mukhametov; published by UIKTEN. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. The article is published with Open Access at www.temjournal.com Such formulation — the use of digital technologies for sustainable and efficient management of urban processes [1] - is the most general and concise characteristic of the concept of “Smart city”. There are several reasons why interest in this concept is expected to increase. Firstly, today the urban population is 55% of the total population of the planet, and by 2050 it is projected to grow to the level of 68% [2]. The constant growth of the urban population increases the burden on major urban systems (transport, education, health, safety, energy, construction, etc.) produce the need to find new tools to improve urban governance. The concept of “smart city” is capable to provide it. Secondly, digital transformation marked the possibility to introduce cyber-physical systems in various spheres, including industrial production and social life in general. The use of the Internet of Things, the development of robotics and additive manufacturing, the emergence of the unmanned vehicles, the spread of the blockchain and other end- to-end technologies leads to cardinal changes in the life of society [3]. As a result, there is an opportunity to use them for innovative development of urban management [4]. Thirdly, the modern city is located at the intersection of many different flows associated with the process of globalization: migration, innovation, financial and economic flows, etc. [5]. It also causes the demand for sufficient flexibility and adaptability of urban management, which can be provided by implementation of the concept of “smart city” [6]. Despite these advantages of “Smart city” research, there are a number of gaps related to the study of the content of this concept. The purpose of this article is to trace the transition of the Smart city concept from the metaphor of urban development to the system of innovative management and to develop a model of urban benchmarking. The review of the major metaphors of urban development is provided in Section 2. In Section 3 the factors of innovative development in smart cities are analyzed. Section 4 examines the urban benchmarking model using machine learning, digital technologies and self-organization mechanisms for system dynamics.