Matrix for a Smart City

India has witnessed a rather rapid, and often unplanned, urbanization. At the same time, the country is expected to have the largest concentration of mega cities in the world by 2020. Thus development of and redesign (retro-fitting) of 'smart cities' has emerged as urgent requirements. However, the design parameters for a smart city are rarely defined, let alone quantified. A smart city, as a sustainable habitat, is characterized by many, often competing, parameters that require constrained optimization, which appears lacking in the current approach. A matrix for a smart city is proposed to argue that a comprehensive, sustained, integrated and critical R&D effort is required for the design and development of a smart, livable city.