There is an increasing world-wide focus on smart cities, and both big and open data, as a means to address the challenges of rapid urbanisation and enhance the lives of citizens. There is no single definition for a smart city, with a broad consensus of smart cities as being intelligent, wired, innovative, entrepreneurial and progressive. A fundamental consideration for any smart city is that smart cities are driven by data. What does this mean for local and provincial government in the Gauteng City-Region who want to be smart cities but are constrained by limited technical resources, disparate and non-integrated planning systems, and inaccessible data? To answer this, the research reported in this paper aims to unpack the idea of a ‘smart-city’ for the Gauteng City-Region, a developing city-region, with specific reference to data as the pillar of any smart analysis or smart planning. In particular, an evaluation of how spatial data infrastructure (SDI) concepts and practices can contribute in the design and development of a suitable model for sharing and making geospatial data available among different government institutions and to the public.

The methodology adopted in this research consists of undertaking a desktop study and evaluation of the status quo of geospatial data sharing activities within and among the various government institutions in the Gauteng City-Region. This includes reviewing policies and websites of local governments in the Gauteng City-Region. Research in terms of assessing international best practices for establishing regional SDIs, in the context of South African spatial data legislation and initiatives was also conducted. Concepts related to open data policies and technologies with respect to the establishment and operation of SDIs around the world, are assessed.

The end result of this research is a set of recommendations that address the current legal, institutional arrangements and policies, people and technological challenges that affect the establishment of an SDI for the Gauteng City-Region. These recommendations also include stakeholders, processes and procedures that constitute a possible holistic conceptual model to adopt in order to establish an SDI which will enable the successful sharing and dissemination of geospatial data among different government institutions and the public within the Gauteng City-Region; thereby making the city-region data smart.