مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد توسعه نوع شناسی از نوآوری شهری هوشمند – الزویر 2018

Introduction

Smart cities are often considered to represent ideas of holistic and sustainable development (e.g. Caragliu et al., 2011), either focusing on technology, human resources, or collaborative governance, or all three combined, as the defining feature (Meijer and Bolívar, 2015). However, the definitions and practical applications of the smart city concept are both unclear and multifaceted. Despite the growing appeal of this concept, the notion of the “smart city” has been under scrutiny for issues related to excessive focus on technology, the pervasive role of experts, and issues of privacy protection, among others (Joss et al., 2017). Although it might not induce fear, like Tolkien’s fire-breathing dragon Smaug (in The Hobbit), the smart city has in many ways become a conceptual hot potato. Critiques against the concept of the smart city have been rising, exemplified by Hollands (2008) asking the real smart city to please stand up, or Shelton et al. (2015) suggesting we instead focus on how and from where smart city policies arise, and how these policies affect cities embracing smart city strategies. Despite critical objections, there is no escaping the demands and popularity of the topic, and the idea that smart innovations and experiments contain the prospect of improving conditions in urban areas (de Jong et al., 2015). The smartness of (smart) cities is therefore not in question in the article at hand; the focus is rather to improve the understanding of this conceptual hot potato. With the increase in scope and popularity, there has naturally also been a surge in contributions aimed at elaborating the understanding of the smart city (cf. Ahvenniemi et al., 2017; Angelidou, 2015; Anthopoulos, 2017; Monfaredzadeh and Berardi, 2015; Neirotti et al., 2014). While many contributions have indeed been valuable in adding to the understanding smart cities, few address the concept from the perspective of innovation. The ones that do tend to focus on (the role of) technological innovations, or the impact of the use of technology in smart urban development, rather than the scope of innovations present in the smart city. While dichotomizing smart with sustainable, or similarly related concepts, or examining the ambiguity or the de facto utility of smart city initiatives has its merits, the need for a more nuanced typology of smart urban innovation is still present. As emphasized by Karvonen et al. (2014), urban actors (both public and private) are now looking to innovation for solutions to contemporary urban complexities. Furthermore, the majority of empirical contributions on smart city initiatives tend to focus on cities of a large (r) size, which can also be viewed as the exceptions (Shelton et al., 2015). Therefore, Barcelona, London, Seoul, and San Fracisco might not, despite their innovativeness, be the most applicable or easiest examples to follow for the non-metropolitan, more ordinary city (cf. Angelidou, 2015; Anthopoulos, 2017; Bakıcı et al., 2013; Batty, 2013; Grimaldi and Fernandez, 2017; Lee et al., 2014). As many scholars have pointed out before me, there is a divergence in the multifaceted approaches that scholars and practitioners have to the concept (Albino et al., 2015; Angelidou, 2015; Anthopoulos, 2017; de Jong et al., 2015; Joss et al., 2017; Shelton et al., 2015). However, my intent is not to provide an encompassing and unifying definition of the smart city.