The growth of smart cities is forcing governments to focus their efforts on the increase of public value creation. Based on prior research, on the perception of smart city practitioners and on an empirical observation, this paper seeks to analyse the public value creation under the context of the smart cities, examining the model of citizen participation and the use of new technologies by city governments in smart cities with the aim at improving e-participation of the citizenry in the public arena. Findings indicate the need for using new technologies to adopt a more participative model of governance, although, nowadays, sample smart cities are not putting available technological tools or promoting citizens to be involved in online public consultations, discussions and petitions.