Top-down or Bottom-up: better approach for Smart City Development
Both are required to achieve smart city success, according to case study of four European cities, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Helsinki and Vienna. Government plays an important role in creating the grand design and strategies of smart city. However, the vision of what kind of smart city is needed must be stemmed from the pool of knowledge, skill and interest of individuals and organisations in the community. Local government then are critical in the improvement of city’s capacity to enable smart city development. To create better vision and strategies of smart city, local government must provide activities that are aimed to raise public awareness of the benefits of the smart city vision, increase the public digital literacy, generate feedback from the inhabitants, stimulate collaboration, generate interest and engage stakeholders in developing the smart city collaboratively.
Mora et al. (2019) explains two kinds of activities that are common from the case study, Open Data Initiatives and Forums or Conference. The open data initiatives such as hackatons, codefest or app contest are activities that are stimulating active participation from the public in resolving their city’s issues. This raises the public awareness and sense of belonging to their own community, by applying the available public data while building the innovative sense of the citizens. While activities such as forums, conference or workshops are excellent mediums for trainings and increasing the human capacity to sustain smart city development. The case study shows that cities in Europe even have various events that targets different groups of citizens, such as programs for school children to intensive course for executives working toward their city’s smart city vision.
Reference:
Mora, L., Deakin, M., & Reid, A. (2019). Strategic principles for smart city development: A multiple case study analysis of European best practices. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 142, 70-97.
