IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rjusxx/v27y2023is1p75-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Smart city as a social transition towards inclusive development through technology: a tale of four smart cities

Author

Listed:
  • Juhyun Lee
  • Julia Babcock
  • Thai Son Pham
  • Thu Hien Bui
  • Myounggu Kang

Abstract

Smart city initiatives have the potential to address many contemporary urban challenges, utilizing information and technology. Increasingly, smart cities are considered as social innovation processes to achieve sustainable and inclusive urban development, being influenced by broader socio-economic and institutional contexts of cities. This paper explores ‘smart city transitions’ across varied urban contexts, in particular, how smart city transitions are enacted and how they contribute to inclusive urban transformation and public value. Using a multiple case studies approach, the research investigated infrastructure planning practices in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Seoul in Korea, Portland in the U.S. and Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in Vietnam, cities that were known for strong efforts to establish integrated platforms to enhance societal benefits. Our analysis showed that each city has addressed its goals around sustainability, equity and affordability by reinforcing the engagement of multiple actors with the support of integrated platforms that facilitate open and multi-directional information flow in a transparent manner. In Amsterdam, innovative solutions for sustainable use of resources have been invented and distributed through multi-level social networks, contributing to the transformation into a circular economy. In Seoul and HCMC, the city's persistent efforts to utilize an open and integrated platform resulted in proactive engagement and collaboration of public and private actors in improving quality, equity and efficiency of transit services. Portland has tackled inequitable access and mistrust issues by setting principles for data governance and facilitating equity in the adoption of innovative technologies. Our research revealed that four cities established different forms of integrated platforms such as a centrally-controlled platform and a community-centred platform in order to address specific socio-economic issues within an institutional setting of each city. We concluded that building an integrated platform is not easy, but it is a critical prerequisite for the process of sustainable transformation to truly achieve smart cities across the globe.

Suggested Citation

  • Juhyun Lee & Julia Babcock & Thai Son Pham & Thu Hien Bui & Myounggu Kang, 2023. "Smart city as a social transition towards inclusive development through technology: a tale of four smart cities," International Journal of Urban Sciences, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(S1), pages 75-100, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:rjusxx:v:27:y:2023:i:s1:p:75-100
    DOI: 10.1080/12265934.2022.2074076
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/12265934.2022.2074076
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/12265934.2022.2074076?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Song Yang & Yinfeng Su & Qin Yu, 2024. "Smart-City Policy in China: Opportunities for Innovation and Challenges to Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-32, August.
    2. Fernando Almeida, 2023. "Prospects of Cybersecurity in Smart Cities," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-21, August.
    3. Noorsidi Aizuddin Mat Noor & Muhammad Nur Ezzat Eshamuddin & Nurul Syakima Mohd Yusoff & Farhana Diana Deris & Mohd Hafızal Ishak & Afizan Mohktar, 2024. "Exploring the Issues and Scenarios among Malaysia’s Real Estate Valuers Community Related to Smart City Concepts," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(5), pages 1806-1813, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:rjusxx:v:27:y:2023:i:s1:p:75-100. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rjus20 .

    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.