IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/urbpla/v5y2020i1p107-115.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

EU Smart City Lighthouse Projects between Top-Down Strategies and Local Legitimation: The Case of Hamburg

Author

Listed:
  • Katharina Lange

    (Institute of Urban Planning and Regional Development, HafenCity University Hamburg, Germany)

  • Jörg Knieling

    (Institute of Urban Planning and Regional Development, HafenCity University Hamburg, Germany)

Abstract

The concept of the smart city has become increasingly popular in recent years and a large number of cities globally follow smart city strategies. By awarding subsidies in the Horizon 2020 programme, the European Union (EU) has taken on an influential role in how smart city projects are conceived and implemented in European municipalities. Using the example of the smart city pilot project mySMARTLife in Hamburg, the purpose of this article is to examine the area of tension between strategically pursuing own objectives and adjustment to external provisions of the EU funding framework. In a qualitative single case study, the article analyses what implications the project mySMARTLife has on urban development practice and local governance arrangements in Hamburg. Examining current literature on smart cities from the perspective of multi-level governance and presenting the current state of research dealing with EU smart city projects, a theoretical framework is developed. The analysis reveals that, due to the EU funding framework, precise project contents are contractually defined at an early stage when local stakeholders have limited involvement in this process. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the EU smart city funding in the project mySMARTLife is more limited to the implementation of individual interventions than to a comprehensive smart city strategy. As a result, this article considers EU-funded smart city initiatives as experimental fields that enable cities to gain experiences that can be incorporated into local strategic development objectives.

Suggested Citation

  • Katharina Lange & Jörg Knieling, 2020. "EU Smart City Lighthouse Projects between Top-Down Strategies and Local Legitimation: The Case of Hamburg," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 107-115.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v5:y:2020:i:1:p:107-115
    DOI: 10.17645/up.v5i1.2531
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/2531
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/up.v5i1.2531?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dameri, Renata Paola & Benevolo, Clara & Veglianti, Eleonora & Li, Yaya, 2019. "Understanding smart cities as a glocal strategy: A comparison between Italy and China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 26-41.
    2. Luca Mora & Roberto Bolici & Mark Deakin, 2017. "The First Two Decades of Smart-City Research: A Bibliometric Analysis," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 3-27, January.
    3. Renata Paola Dameri & Clara Benevolo & Eleonora Veglianti & Yaya Li, 2019. "Understanding smart cities as a glocal strategy: A comparison between Italy and China," Post-Print hal-04522123, HAL.
    4. Caragliu, Andrea & Del Bo, Chiara F., 2019. "Smart innovative cities: The impact of Smart City policies on urban innovation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 373-383.
    5. Engelbert, Jiska & van Zoonen, Liesbet & Hirzalla, Fadi, 2019. "Excluding citizens from the European smart city: The discourse practices of pursuing and granting smartness," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 347-353.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Katharina Lange & Jörg Knieling, 2020. "EU Smart City Lighthouse Projects between Top-Down Strategies and Local Legitimation: The Case of Hamburg," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(1), pages 107-115.
    2. Marchesani, Filippo & Masciarelli, Francesca & Bikfalvi, Andrea, 2023. "Smart city as a hub for talent and innovative companies: Exploring the (dis) advantages of digital technology implementation in cities," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    3. Secinaro, Silvana & Brescia, Valerio & Lanzalonga, Federico & Santoro, Gabriele, 2022. "Smart city reporting: A bibliometric and structured literature review analysis to identify technological opportunities and challenges for sustainable development," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 296-313.
    4. Karimikia, Hadi & Bradshaw, Robert & Singh, Harminder & Ojo, Adegboyega & Donnellan, Brian & Guerin, Michael, 2022. "An emergent taxonomy of boundary spanning in the smart city context – The case of smart Dublin," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    5. Johannes Stübinger & Lucas Schneider, 2020. "Understanding Smart City—A Data-Driven Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-23, October.
    6. Nicos Komninos & Christina Kakderi & Luca Mora & Anastasia Panori & Elena Sefertzi, 2022. "Towards High Impact Smart Cities: a Universal Architecture Based on Connected Intelligence Spaces," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(2), pages 1169-1197, June.
    7. Ligorio, Lorenzo & Venturelli, Andrea & Caputo, Fabio, 2022. "Tracing the boundaries between sustainable cities and cities for sustainable development. An LDA analysis of management studies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    8. Shadi Shayan & Ki Pyung Kim & Tony Ma & Tan Hai Dang Nguyen, 2020. "The First Two Decades of Smart City Research from a Risk Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-20, November.
    9. Li Wang & Qian Xie & Fei Xue & Zongxin Li, 2022. "Does Smart City Construction Reduce Haze Pollution?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-17, December.
    10. Oleg Dashkevych & Boris A. Portnov, 2022. "Criteria for Smart City Identification: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-34, April.
    11. Nguyen, Huong Thu & Marques, Pilar & Benneworth, Paul, 2022. "Living labs: Challenging and changing the smart city power relations?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    12. Mora, Luca & Gerli, Paolo & Ardito, Lorenzo & Messeni Petruzzelli, Antonio, 2023. "Smart city governance from an innovation management perspective: Theoretical framing, review of current practices, and future research agenda," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    13. Battulga Buyannemekh & Mila Gasco-Hernandez & J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, 2024. "Fostering Smart Citizens: The Role of Public Libraries in Smart City Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-26, February.
    14. Kroh, Julia, 2021. "Sustain(able) urban (eco)systems: Stakeholder-related success factors in urban innovation projects," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    15. Xiaohua Wang & Tianyu Wan & Qing Yang & Mengli Zhang & Yingnan Sun, 2021. "Research on Innovation Non-Equilibrium of Chinese Urban Agglomeration Based on SOM Neural Network," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-21, August.
    16. Yigitcanlar, Tan & Han, Hoon & Kamruzzaman, Md. & Ioppolo, Giuseppe & Sabatini-Marques, Jamile, 2019. "The making of smart cities: Are Songdo, Masdar, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Brisbane the best we could build?," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    17. Shiran Geng & Hing-Wah Chau & Elmira Jamei & Zora Vrcelj, 2024. "Demystifying the Use of Open-Access Data in Smart Heritage Implementations," Tourism and Hospitality, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-26, November.
    18. Filippo Corsini & Rafael Laurenti & Franziska Meinherz & Francesco Paolo Appio & Luca Mora, 2019. "The Advent of Practice Theories in Research on Sustainable Consumption: Past, Current and Future Directions of the Field," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-19, January.
    19. Fan, Xiaomin & Xu, Yingzhi, 2023. "Does high-speed railway promote urban innovation? Evidence from China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    20. Claire Daniel & Christopher Pettit, 2022. "Charting the past and possible futures of planning support systems: Results of a citation network analysis," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 49(7), pages 1875-1892, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v5:y:2020:i:1:p:107-115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.