The Institute of Cross-cultural Studies and the Department of Social Sciences at UIC co-sponsored this invited talk by Dr. Hongmou Zhang, an Assistant Professor at the School of Government at Peking University. During the talk, Dr Zhang explored three illustrative cross-cultural examples to demonstrate the application of sociological imagination in enhancing our understanding of social aspects of smart cities. The talk was moderated by Dr. Shuang Wu from the Globalization and Development Program. It was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Youth Project [42301281] and the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Research Foundation Youth Project [23YJC840024].