How smart is smart? Theoretical and empirical considerations on implementing smart city objectives – a case study of Dutch railway station areas

Abstract

The current widespread attention on the concept of smart city in both policy and practice has stimulated academic discussion regarding the scope and applicability of this concept. An important question is whether cities and regions are truly advanced in implementing the concept in their policies and practices relative to its conceptual elaborations in academia. The aim of this paper is to analyse this congruence between theory and practice in the context of the ongoing transformations of railway station areas in European urban regions. Based on in-depth interviewing using aspects of Q-methodology, this paper investigates whether and how smart city concepts are implemented by stakeholders in three station redevelopment projects in the Netherlands. The results show that the current implementation of smart city concepts in practice is varied but modest and not (yet) very advanced. Knowledge exchange and innovations are currently hampered by a lack of acceptance and knowhow among stakeholders, as well as by institutional and competitive constraints. For instance, stakeholders stress that data privacy regulations should be well organized before further implementation can occur. Transparency about how and what data are used may create more willingness among users to assist in developing and accepting new data technologies. However, the technologies are not yet completely developed, and concerns about the "loss" of personal privacy are holding back the widespread and advanced use of data supplied technologies. Although stakeholders seem to be aware of the opportunities the smart city concept offers, for now, the widespread implementation of innovative and advanced smart city concepts remains in the future.Keywords: smart city; smart governance; railway station areas; Q-methodology; stakeholders IntroductionIn recent years, the concept of the "smart city" has been taken up by many city leaders, IT companies and scholars worldwide, resulting in a flurry of professional (e.g., ARUP 2010; Washburn and Sindhu 2010), popular (Greenfield 2013;Townsend 2013) and scholarly (Deakin 2011; Glasmeier and Christopherson 2015) publications on the topic. To an increasing extent, both practitioners and policy-makers proclaim that their cities and regions are "smart", a designation exemplified by, for example, smart city events and Research, 2016 Vol. 29, No. 4, 424-441, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13511610.2016 rankings of smart cities. For example, Utrecht is one of the most competitive European regions and develops many smart projects related to climate policy, traffic, services, life sciences and gaming (The New Economy 2014). Amsterdam has its own smart city portal on which it promotes initiatives such as a 3D-printed canal house and a selfreliant sustainable energy network for the entire city. Such examples raise the expectation that these cities and regions are rather advanced in implementing the smart city concept in their policies and practices. The question remains, however, as to whether this is truly the case and whether co...

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