Digital Twins for Human-centred Smart Cities: A Systematic Review of Citizen Engagement under Ecological and Participation Frameworks

This systematic review investigates Urban Digital Twins (UDTs) as active participation tools for citizens in smart cities (SCs), through two frameworks: the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation and a Social-Ecological Model. Across 80 publications, the study reveals a disproportionately high concentration of UDT applications in Europe, North America, and parts of Asia, with a marked geographical gap in representation from the Global South. The research demonstrates that UDT programs predominantly function at the middle rungs of the participation ladder (e.g., Consult and Involve), with actual cooperation or citizen empowerment remaining infrequent. Engagement is mainly focused on community and organisational levels, with less attention to individual or interpersonal dynamics. As such, the study finds that although UDTs support more transparent and consultative systems, their capacity to empower citizens significantly is limited by technical, institutional, and socio-political barriers. To achieve more equal and human-centred SCs, future initiatives will need to prioritise context-sensitive design for the Global South, formalise citizen engagement throughout decision-making processes, ensure that technology’s growth is tied to governance networks and structures that support it, and enable citizen participation.
© 2026 and published by the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA), Hong Kong.