Rethinking Requirements Engineering for Smart Cities: A Case Study in Indonesia

Smart city projects aim to improve the quality of life of citizens and provide solutions to multifaceted urban problems. Technological factors and financial investments are often identified as critical success factors for smart city projects, which equally applies to the Global South. However, in reality, many artifacts produced by Global South smart city projects are not effective despite leveraging suitable technologies and receiving ample funding. We argue that this discrepancy can be primarily attributed to the misalignment between citizens' requirements and the functionalities of the produced artifacts. This paper critically examines the role of requirements engineering in the development of smart cities, with a focus on the Global South. By means of a case study conducted in Indonesia, we identified a highly hierarchical approach for eliciting requirements which significantly contrasts with the participatory approach often employed in the Global North. This hierarchical approach of requirements elicitation impacts the completeness and correctness of the identified requirements. This paper identifies the determinant factors that influence the implementation of requirements engineering within smart city projects in the Global South.