A city that invests in innovation and provides a roadmap and infrastructure to support successful business outcomes and attract industry and investment in smart sectors.
Smart cities as a response to urbanization and the need for sustainable development. The role of smart technology and innovation in transforming cities into smarter, more efficient, and livable spaces is ever more critical in the future. Angelidou et al. (2022) identifies several key trends in smart city development.
While the Arctic faces unique challenges and opportunities, the concept of smart sustainable cities can be adapted and applied to promote sustainable development in this environmentally sensitive area. Technology and innovation play critical roles in supporting sustainable development in Arctic cities.
Bodø’s ambition to be the smartest city in the world started in 2017 when the Norwegian government granted the move of their airport to Bodø. The city establishes the vision of being the most smart and sustainable city by creating thorough planning of a more compact city and focusing the development on the city centre.
Climatic, geographic and demographic factors often become a challenge for arctic city development and growth. Smart City concept then often adopted to boost the innovation and growth of the arctic cities. with approximately three-quarters of the Arctic population living in the urban area, many cities shift their economy by honing the knowledge-based economy.
A successful smart city project might inspire city stakeholders to expand the project or upscale the project into a wider area of application. Van Winden et al. (2016) distinguished three types of smart city project upscaling that can be useful to understand how the project can be applied in another context based on their type and goals of the project.
The development of a viable business model is key for continuation of the project and implementation of the results. Especially projects that depend on external funding or subsidy need to determine from the outset howthey will generate sufficient value and revenue streams to be able to continue the project after the subsidy it ended.
How advanced the technology or solution is not only the sole factor of success of a smart city initiative. How partnership of different stakeholders was built and organised is also critical to the success of the smart city projects.
Apparently 25% of Amsterdam canals are navigable waters. Yet, the canals are mostly used for leisure and tourism purposes. City Supplier is an initiative to reuse the canals to facilitate the city’s transport need.
Office space in the urban area has become unaffordable for creatives in Amsterdam as population and the city continue to grow. When the Amsterdam Municipality opened a competition for development proposal of an abandoned wharf previously used by the shipbuilding industry, a group of architects proposed De Ceuvel as an office park development for creatives.
From the concern of the family-owned business, RIGO Paints rethink how the paints are produced to reduce its ecological impact. Petrochemical and acrylic paints are widely known for its environmental harm from its manufacturing process that use significant energy and produce harmful waste.
Mu et al. (2022) conducted a study to fill in the gaps of knowledge of causal relationship between organisational conditions and government-led smart city projects. This exploration contrasts with the widely studied business-led smart city projects.
Rapid rate of urbanisation in major cities have driven many governments struggling to provide various public services to the inhabitants. Thus, many city governments resort to reaching out to Social Enterprise to support the mobilising & dispensing of socio-economic resources.
Digital and data technology are often seen as the key ingredients of smart city development. Yet, many cities come across roadblocks when establishing their smart city only by adopting the latest technology. Often the technological reliance has only created additional complexity related to data management, security and governance.
To embrace urban transformation toward smart city development, the local government needs to not only prepare the installation of ICT. Smart cities also benefit from strengthening the city's physical and social readiness to acquire optimal growth.
Fiscal constraint that smaller cities usually face in the adoption of Smart City is the inadequate scale given their size and reduced purchasing power. Case studies of small and rural municipalities in Canada show a way to address this challenge through municipal collaboration.
Siokas et al. (2021) maps, evaluate and analyse local municipalities strategic action that contributes to the success of Smart City. First, the study found that having digital tools and infrastructure is significant for the success of the adoption of Smart City model.
Despite many international or national push for smart city development, it is the local context, constraint and enablers in a specific municipality that determines the degree of innovation a city will have. A study examines 22 smart cities in Switzerland to find out what elements of a city that are significant in the development of its Smart City vision.
Cities are expected to generate up to 2.2 billion tonnes of solid waste in 2025. City of Glasgow takes an initiative to create a more sustainable production and consumption value chain by embracing the Circular Economy Concept.
The concept of smart city is about utilising the combined intelligence, skills and resources that a city possesses from the heterogeneous stakeholders that work together to find solutions to the city’s problems. Part of becoming a smart city is the ability to be more open and encouraging for opportunities for new business models and entrepreneurship.
To enhance the quality of life in the city, the city government must take advantage of the clustering resource and knowledge that the area accumulates. Cities as the place of clustering citizens, private enterprise, social organisation, and higher education hubs may benefit from smart cities with open governments.
One indicator of a successful Smart City is its ability to adapt the vision and strategies to local context. Yet, through the study of 15 cities globally, many Smart City visions and strategies poorly accommodate the local needs. Failing to incorporate the unique physical characteristics, demography, and culture of a local area in the Smart City implementation, a municipality risk themselves in loosing the comparative advantages with other cities.
Smart City development risks may interfere with the success of the goals that municipalities set for their cities. Thus, risk management is required to reduce the probabilities of negative impact and even increase the probability of positive opportunities in Smart City implementation.
The massive investment in Smart City development should come with a suitable risk management. To assist municipalities in identifying and managing their risk in smart city implementation, Ullah et al. (2021) had identified a technology-organisation-environment or TOE-based risk management.
ICT is a powerful tool to achieve smart city including in the dimension of the governance system. Utilising ICT to encourage better public participation in the policy design and decision making is considered one of the goals of smart city approach.
In 2019, Dowling et al. documented the smart city initiatives Australian Local Governments’ employ in their jurisdiction. With the limited resources and scale that municipalities have, local governments should be deliberate in implementing Smart City Initiatives in their jurisdiction.
The complex and unpredictable nature of urban problems make ways for big data to contribute to addressing it. Big data analytics that are applied to urban governance and planning, could inform decision makers and city governments in the strategic, long term urban policy, Kandt and Batty (2021) argue.
Yigitcanlar et al. (2021) identifies five key factors that determine 65% of smart city transformation readiness in Australian cities. The factors were identified through the analysis of 180 LGAs in Australia that prioritise their policy and public fund to support the smartness and competitiveness of the city.
Responding to the finding of five key factors that are affecting the smart city transformation readiness, Yigitcanlar et al. (2021) developed four steps that could help policy maker, planners, and city managers to encourage smart and sustainable cities.
Helsinki provides an example on how to encourage innovation in the region that would eventually improve the quality of life of its citizens. The government held competitions that utilised the existing Open Data service to the citizens and start-ups that encouraged the creations of products and services that would benefit the city.
Smart City is a city that is resilient and capable of adapting to current and future pressure to its urban system, such as the intense climate change impact, Fernández et al. (2020) suggests. From best practices in Barcelona, Rotterdam and Vienna, indicate that integration of economic and environmental strategies are crucial in contributing to ensure better quality of life.
