What really makes cities smart? A human-centric approach to smartness

Smart has become a highly sought after status for cities across the world – the ‘smart city’ seen as the pinnacle of 21st century development. Yet despite the shift to citizen inclusion, smart city narratives continue to advocate for technologification to deliver the much sought after ‘smart city status’, whilst companies in the realm of technological colossi attempt to become protagonists of the smart development story. However, uncertainty remains as to what a smart city really is, which continues to perplex and challenge those working in urban development, as what can now be technologically achieved can be prioritized and delivered over what perhaps should be put in place to bring effective improvements to citizens’ quality of life.

This research therefore sought to explore this dissonance of smartness as currently found in practice, and unpack the notion of smart from specific yet relevant perspectives. The overall aim was to develop a set of fundamental tenets able to optimally articulate and underpin smart from citizen focused inclusive perspectives. To achieve this aim, the theories behind smart cities were initially analysed and synthesized to develop a new model of the smart city, in which outcome for the citizen is valorised over any output - which often manifests as the implementation of technology. Subsequently, naturally occurring data in the form of the highly influential International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Indicators for Smart cities and the IMD Smart City Index were sampled and unpacked through a Critical Discourse Analysis, able to reveal their contributions to the concept of the smart city within specific contexts, through the lens of the outcome model for smartness, thus making a unique contribution to knowledge in this space.

Technology was found to be the determining and often the sole factor of smartness the ISO standard advocated for, often at the expense of citizens’ quality of life. The Smart City Index was found to have a very different understanding and measuring of smartness by being more considerate of citizens compared to the ISO standard, but was not referential to the ISO standard or any other policy or official guidance to smartness which city leaders consult. This lack of consistency suggests a disconnect between what regulators propose for the development of smart cities, and what the indices perceive and measure as smartness, confirming the need for simpler and more inclusive guidance. The overall aim of this study was to develop a set of core tenets able to underpin smartness for cities, based on the outcome model and the findings from the Critical Discourse Analysis. These tenets were further developed, and to some extent externally validated, through member-checking interviews with a small sample of smart city experts, ultimately leading to a final set of tenets able to be used in both academia and practice.

In addition to this contribution to practice, recommendations are also made for further research of both the understanding and measuring of smartness, especially when it comes to the positioning of people therein, as well as the guidance provided to city leaders to develop and optimise the smartness of their cities. Without a shift of focus from technology to citizens, cities risk being (mis)guided into endless technology adoption that does not bring real benefit or smartness for those they seek to serve.