Smart cities have gained widespread interests in the recent years. However, the understanding of the subject can differ among different smart cities' communities, particularly across the academia, industry, and government sectors. Similarly, the approach towards the realization of smart cities can vary from one city to the other, depending on their standpoints and perspectives. These are largely due to the subject matter at hand which is not only inherently interdisciplinary but also all-encompassing in nature, hence resulting in the wide heterogeneity in the treatment of the subject. The purpose of this paper is thus aimed to summarize the basic pertinent understanding of smart cities (in terms of “why”, “what”, “who”, “when”, “where”) as well as to put forward the various key approaches in smart cities (in terms of “how”). From there, a smarter approach towards smart cities is then delineated taking into account the considerations of the government, providers and consumers in order to attain an overall win-win benefit for all the stakeholders involved. It is meant to be a short and concise paper for both practitioners and researchers, (1) who are in the field to gain a additional insight into the subject or (2) who are new in the field to get an introductory overview of the subject, so as to obtain a better understanding in the approach towards smart cities that is relevant to their individual context.