• World Technopolis Review
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.97-112
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• 2018

The notion of smart cities, presently, is a highly popular topic in urban policy circles. This concept is adopted by many cities across the world-with an aim of increasing urban smartness in various ways and areas. Productivity, innovation, liveability, wellbeing, accessibility, sustainability, governance, planning, and citizen participation are among these areas. Despite good policy intentions, smart city initiatives in practice had only limited impact in delivering the desired urban outcomes. This paper aims to investigate the smart city phenomenon and its planning practice approaches from an evolutionary perspective. The study places smart city plans and strategies of a number of cities across the globe under the microscope. The findings reveal that current smart city efforts are not adequate to combat the challenges of the Anthropocene epoch-that is already upon us. This paper concludes with a consolidated definition of smart and sustainable cities and considerations for moving towards Post-Anthropocentric urbanism-that is truly smart and sustainable urbanism-to avoid an imminent urban ecocide.