Tech-driven smart cities must shift to governance-led models Researchers are urging a reset in how smart cities are understood and governed, arguing that urban digital transformation has moved too far toward infrastructure, automation and optimization without enough attention to public value, inclusion and long-term resilience. A new research published in Encyclopedia says the next phase of smart city development will depend less on how many advanced tools cities deploy and more on whether those tools are embedded in systems that protect human well-being, environmental goals and institutional trust. The study, titled “Human-Centric, Sustainable and Resilient Smart Cities in Industry 5.0,” presents a broad conceptual framework for understanding how cities should move beyond earlier technology-led smart city models and instead organize digital transformation around the three core Industry 5.0 values of human-centricity, sustainability and resilience. Cities face growing pressure to modernize public services with artificial intelligence, connected sensors, immersive digital systems and automated infrastructure while also responding to climate stress, social inequality, cybersecurity threats and declining public trust in opaque digital governance. The authors argue that these pressures cannot be solved by adding more technology alone. The claim that smart cities must be treated as socio-technical ecosystems where governance, accountability, participation and long-term impact matter as much as technical performance. The paper rejects the older assumption that urban innovation can be measured mainly through efficiency, automation and data integration. Early smart city models, often shaped by Industry 4.0 thinking, focused heavily on sensing, connectivity and analytics for operational gains. The study says that approach improved performance in some areas but also produced technocentric bias, weak participation, privacy concerns and legitimacy gaps. That has driven a broader shift toward what the paper identifies as a more citizen-oriented and value-driven smart city model. Industry 5.0 is a policy and conceptual turning point. According