Get smart: The importance of urban facilities management to smart neighbourhoods and their citizens in a project's early stages

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how citizen participation as part of Urban Facility Management both as a consideration and practical application can contribute to the positive development of human-centred Smart Neighbourhoods. Through a combination of desk research and data from an ongoing research project in Norway, this paper will use literature to provide a theoretical link between these concepts whilst also showing how this link can be demonstrated in real work projects in the Norwegian Municipality of Lier. The findings illustrate that Facilities Management-focused urban planning processes allow for citizen-optimized communities, well planned and easy-to-implement maintenance strategies that ensure the long-term viability of Smart and Sustainable Cities. The results of this paper can be important for the development of Urban FM as a field, the reorientation of FM as not just a building level concept, but community level and has applicability to the fields of FM, architecture, urban planning, and Smart Cities.