The study analyzes the use of digital technologies as a platform for the integration of adults aged 60 and over to smart cities and proposes policies and strategies to governments that allow the reduction of the prevailing backwardness in digital literacy. The results show the existence of significant inequalities in the use, access, modality, and frequency of ICT by this age group; the gap is deepened by age, level of education, social stratum and gender. Some other factors of perception hinder the adoption of technology use, such as lack of knowledge, lack of access to ICTs, lack of knowledge about the use of ICTs, lack of access to ICTs, lack of knowledge about the use of ICTs, and lack of access to ICTs, lack of interest or feeling that they do not need to use ICTs, the latter factors have been identified as the main obstacles to associating the usefulness of these tools to their benefit.
TopIntroduction
Contributing to Public Policies for the construction of Smart and Sustainable Cities is the objective of the public management of many governments. To achieve this, it is necessary to rethink the government from the digital transformation, enabling resources to innovate, be more efficient and better know the citizen to meet their needs and improve their quality of life.
However, not all cities that implement smart city projects follow an orderly plan or have governance designed for that purpose. Sometimes they follow opportunities that arise as they go along, step by step, starting with providing higher levels of connectivity and developing platforms that facilitate the management of transportation, security and health services, which originate from different internal areas, adjusting to the available budget.
Smart cities are drivers of innovation, set a course sometimes ahead of the rest of the country, and are therefore drivers of digitization.
(Alvarado-López Raúl Arturo, 2020a)proposes smart city development models based on the types of initiatives undertaken. This qualitative classification takes into account the level of development in terms of a more limited and select group of digital enablers, but allows to obtain some distinctive characteristics of the stage of evolution or path in which they are moving, proposes the existence of a specialized authority, levels of government coordination, citizen participation, maturity of an open data policy, data-based decision-making and use of cloud computing services.
There are many definitions and classifications of what is meant by a Smart City (Bouskela et al., 2016). proposes a definition of a Smart City based on six main characteristics:
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Generates integration, which in turn provides the public administration with necessary and transparent information.
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Resource optimization. Optimizes resource allocation.
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Performance indicators that are useful for measuring, comparing, and improving public policies.
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Attention to citizens. High degree of satisfaction of the inhabitants.
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Process efficiency. Common procedures that increase government efficiency.
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Citizen participation. Greater participation of civil society in the Administration.
These six characteristics imply many challenges of internal transformation in the management of cities, where innovation and sustainability must be transversal axes to the rest of the objectives or priorities that are outlined. Technologies are only tools that must be linked to the management process in order to offer better services, as well as to meet current and future citizen demands (see figure 1).
Figure 1. Six main characteristics of a smart city
As noted (Pittaluga Lucia & Rivoir Ana, 2012), the smart city aims to improve the quality of life of citizens and, therefore, has increased its importance in both political and academic agendas.
The expansion and growth of cities have led to traffic problems, pollution, and social (Rocha et al., 2019). At this point, the knowledge and use of technologies play a fundamental role in their adoption. The integration of adults aged 60 and over into this vision of the future represents a real challenge for governments.