The Planning of Smart City Initiatives

The idea of a ‘Smart City’ is increasingly widespread both as a concept and also as a practical reality. The choice of a city to become ‘Smart’ is inherently strategic yet our understanding of why and how cities make that decision is limited. This research addresses this issue by synthesising existing academic debates and evidence from the implementation of smart city initiatives around a coherent framework. The framework makes four contributions. Firstly, it addresses the successful strategic planning of smart city initiatives. Secondly, it emphasises the role of factors such as the urban context, smart city and urban vision, big data technologies, and data governance strategies. Thirdly, it provides a means for comparing cities that have already taken steps toward planning smart city initiatives and puts forward guidelines for those that are at the planning stage of the process. Fourthly, it guides future empirical research investigating the determinants and the outcomes of smart city initiatives.