Governing the smart city: a review of the literature on smart urban governance

Albert Meijer; Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar

doi:10.1177/0020852314564308

journal article Apr 29, 2015

Governing the smart city: a review of the literature on smart urban governance

Albert Meijer Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar

International Review of Administrative Sciences Vol. 82 No. 2 pp. 392-408 · SAGE Publications

View at Publisher Save 10.1177/0020852314564308

Abstract

Academic attention to smart cities and their governance is growing rapidly, but the fragmentation in approaches makes for a confusing debate. This article brings some structure to the debate by analyzing a corpus of 51 publications and mapping their variation. The analysis shows that publications differ in their emphasis on (1) smart technology, smart people or smart collaboration as the defining features of smart cities, (2) a transformative or incremental perspective on changes in urban governance, (3) better outcomes or a more open process as the legitimacy claim for smart city governance. We argue for a comprehensive perspective: smart city governance is about crafting new forms of human collaboration through the use of ICTs to obtain better outcomes and more open governance processes. Research into smart city governance could benefit from previous studies into success and failure factors for e-government and build upon sophisticated theories of socio-technical change. This article highlights that smart city governance is not a technological issue: we should study smart city governance as a complex process of institutional change and acknowledge the political nature of appealing visions of socio-technical governance. Points for practitioners The study provides practitioners with an in-depth understanding of current debates about smart city governance. The article highlights that governing a smart city is about crafting new forms of human collaboration through the use of information and communication technologies. City managers should realize that technology by itself will not make a city smarter: building a smart city requires a political understanding of technology, a process approach to manage the emerging smart city and a focus on both economic gains and other public values.

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Details

Published: Apr 29, 2015
Vol/Issue: 82(2)
Pages: 392-408
License: View

Authors

A

Albert Meijer

Utrecht University, The Netherlands

M

Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar

University of Granada, Spain

Cite This Article

Albert Meijer, Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar (2015). Governing the smart city: a review of the literature on smart urban governance. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 82(2), 392-408. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852314564308

Governing the smart city: a review of the literature on smart urban governance

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