Smart cities are ideal cities with emphasis on functionality, efficiency, and convenience. On the other hand, smart cities are constantly reproducing ‘spaces of governance' under the influence of neoliberalism. The smart city control approach is to reduce social costs by maximizing the effect with minimal capital. It is highly likely that all smart cities will be implemented as technology-oriented cities that emphasize only big data and artificial intelligence-oriented efficiency. In other words, smart cities have resulted in a holistic crisis at the anthropological level, including human identity, cultural and ethical levels. This study aims to re-examine smart cities and local cultural values in the so-called paradigm shift due to COVID-19 and establish the concept of smart cultural cities for regional cultural development. Therefore, this study focused on European cities and domestic historical cities as a case study of smart cultural cities. These discussions mean that smart cultural urban research and realization should be carried out through interdisciplinary research that considers technology, culture and policy aspects together. In addition, local citizens themselves will have to become main agent of smart cultural cities, resisting governance. Michel de Certeau once said that the everyday space itself is a work of art and a “place of practice”. These studies will provide the potential for complementary relationships between smart cities and cultures and the direction of related research.