This paper summarizes the outcomes of a literature review on smart cities and goes on to provide an overview of the critical insights it offers. Bypassing mainstream academic readings of the subject and offering a critique of the Smart City Ranking, future internet development and Triple Helix models, the insights this review offers go beyond the state-of-the-art. That is to say, beyond the status of Smart City Ranking and articulations of the future internet development thesis, by overcoming the criticisms which «mode 2» and «mode 3» accounts of knowledge production otherwise levy at the Triple Helix model. The critical synthesis that is set out in this paper presents the metrics of a future internet-based governance discernable as a measure of wealth created from the intellectual capital of these technologies and their applications as urban and regional innovations
