Abstract: Under the circumstance of irreversible urbanization, smart city has been paid great attention to and promoted as the type of city in the future. Problems have emerged regarding the external expression of imbalance between intelligence and wisdom, such as technology superposition, replacing demand with function, resource waste and repeated construction, and internal friction of city operation. Based on the anatomy of the essence and the crucial points of smart cities, this paper lays out a developing mechanism for smart cities, and emphasizes some important aspects at the same time, including respecting city characteristics, paying close attention to interconnection and interoperation, and defining the future direction of a smart city according to public perception. Furthermore, suggestions to accelerate smart city development with the help of standardization are provided.