Land Use Policy 88 (2019) 104187

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Land Use Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol

The making of smart cities: Are Songdo, Masdar, Amsterdam, San Francisco T
and Brisbane the best we could build?
⁎
Tan Yigitcanlara, , Hoon Hanb, Md. Kamruzzamanc, Giuseppe Ioppolod, Jamile Sabatini-Marquese
a
School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia
b
Faculty of the Built Environment, University of New South Wales, UNSW Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia
c
Monash Art Design and Architecture, Monash University, 900 Dandenong Road, Caulfield East, VIC, 3145, Australia
d
Department of Economics, University of Study of Messina, Piazza Pugliatti 1, 98122, Messina, Italy
e
Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Sao Paulo, Rua do Anfiteatro, 513, Butantã, São Paulo, Brazil

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Transforming urban areas into prosperous, liveable, and sustainable settlements is a longstanding goal for local
Smart cities governments. Today, countless urban settlements across the globe have jumped into the so-called ‘smart city’
Smart urbanism bandwagon to achieve this goal. Under the smart city agenda, presently, many government agencies are at-
Smart urban technology tempting to engineer an urban transformation to tackle urban prosperity, liveability, and sustainability issues
Sustainable urban development
mostly through the means of technology solutions. Nonetheless, the notion of smart cities is ambiguous, and
Sustainable urbanism
there are limited conceptual frameworks to assist cities and their administrations in understanding the big
Urban policymaking
Climate emergency picture view of this urban development paradigm. The aim of this paper is to generate a clear understanding on
the making of successful smart city practices. This is done by elaborating the smart cities notion through a
multidimensional conceptual framework, examining smart city best practices across the globe—i.e., Songdo,
Masdar, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Brisbane—, and providing insights of smart city approaches from these
cases. The findings of the study disclose the need for a comprehensive smart city conceptualisation to inform
policymaking and consequently the practice. This will help in the formation of a much-needed smart urbanism
model for the resilient settlements of the climate emergency era.

1. Introduction grounds across the globe. Problems, hence, caused by rapid urbanisa-
tion—and also dependency on fossil fuel—remained catastrophic. Most
The number of urban dwellers has been growing at a rate of around parts of the world, city administrations are challenged to provide es-
60 million people annually during the last decades (Goonetilleke et al., sential services to the urban population such as accessibility, safety and
2014). This trend, day by day, is turning our planet into an exceedingly security, healthy built and natural environments, social equity, clean
urbanised one. The worst side of that this growth is largely unplanned energy, affordable shelter, and amenities—let alone addressing the
or informal and sprawling in nature. This urbanisation practice—in the sustainability problem adequately (Gilbert et al., 2013; Konys, 2018).
Anthropocene, a geological era of human domination on earth’s re- This issue has led to seeking smarter solutions for the delivery of urban
sources—leads to many complex problems, most important one being services—through innovative services, efficient mechanisms, and smart
the climate emergency (Dizdaroglu et al., 2012). During the last few and sustainable infrastructures (Yigitcanlar, 2015).
years, various solutions have been put forward to combat the con- The notion of smart city has been introduced at the early 2000s
sequential problems of unsustainable urbanism. These include adopting (Lara et al., 2016). It was initially conceptualised as technology-assis-
new paradigms to make cities more sustainable, resilient and smar- ted—through sensors, surveillance cameras, control centres, autono-
ter—and as a consequence to generate prosperity, liveability, and mous driving, and connected infrastructure and communities—was
wellbeing for the citizens, and making cities more environmentally assumed to result in increased productivity, efficiency, innovation, and
friendly (Yigitcanlar, 2009; Albino et al., 2015). safety (Trindade et al., 2017; Zawieska and Pieriegud, 2018; Faisal
These solutions, however, did not find large scale application et al., 2019). In other words, the main objective of smart cities is to

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (T. Yigitcanlar), [email protected] (H. Han), [email protected] (Md. Kamruzzaman),
[email protected] (G. Ioppolo), [email protected] (J. Sabatini-Marques).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104187
Received 21 May 2019; Received in revised form 24 August 2019; Accepted 27 August 2019
0264-8377/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
T. Yigitcanlar, et al. Land Use Policy 88 (2019) 104187

provide a way of improving quality of life through the deployment and solutions (Buuse and Kolk, 2019). This ideology firstly gave birth to the
use of smart urban technologies (Yigitcanlar and Kamruzzaman, 2018, intelligent city, and then the smart city concept. Today, smart cities are
2019). Another objective concerns of boosting urban innovation and widely seen as urban settlements that adopts the state-of-the-art tech-
economic productivity through a sustainable industrial ecosystem de- nologies to address various urbanisation challenges. For instance, stated
velopment (Ioppolo et al., 2016; Arbolino et al., 2018; Aldieri et al., by Mora et al. (2019, p.90), “[t]ransforming urban areas into smart
2019c). The concept of sustainability was generally used as an ancillary cities is an ambition that local and regional governments are trying to
goal, and so far, has not been adequately incorporated in the smart city realise by developing strategies that make it possible to tackle urban
practice (Han and Hawken, 2018; Martin et al., 2018). Conversely, it is sustainability by means of ICT solutions.”
essential for a smart city to generate high-quality, sustainable, and Even though, the notion is widespread, smart cities are at their in-
liveable places for all—rather than to offer cutting-edge digital tech- fancy. According to Harrison and Donnelly (2011, p.6), “the current ad
nology services for the urban elite (Leem et al., 2019). hoc approaches of smart cities to the improvement of cities are re-
Despite its abovementioned practice limitations, the smart city miniscent of pre-scientific medicine. They may do well, but we have
movement has gone viral globally during the last decade. This is a result little detailed understanding of why. Smart city is a field in want of a
of technology—aggressively promoted by the global technology, con- good theoretical base”. Smart city optimists argue that through time the
struction, and consultancy companies—being seen as a remedy to ur- concept and its practice will eventually evolve and mature (Yadav et al.,
banisation problems (Chang et al., 2018). While a massive consumption 2019). However, Yigitcanlar et al. (2018, p.156) emphasise that “the
society is an integral contributor of the experienced problems, the ex- delay in the conceptualisation will highly likely result in inefficient
isting smart city agenda has a negligible focus on the consumption policies, poor investment decisions, and not being able to address the
behaviour change. The reason for that is technology is a commodi- urbanisation challenges properly in a timely and adequate manner”.
ty—constantly producing new versions, and making earlier ones re- Time is, unfortunately, something that we do not have much of it.
dundant—and its materialism is profitable for the technology compa- The 2018 Special Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
nies that drive the (corporate) smart city agenda (Hollands, 2015). For (IPCC) on the significant impacts expected from 1.5 °C degree of global
example, some scholars perceive innovation/technology as a vehicle to warming—the aspirational limit that countries adopted in the Paris
conquer the growth limits of capitalism (Yun, 2015). Agreement—generated widespread and deep concerns. Moreover, the
This mostly consumerist, corporate, and technology-centric per- report revealed that we have only 12 years left to act on climate change
spective, however, has become subject to heavy criticism among some (IPCC, 2018)—that is 11 years now and counting. Responding to cli-
scholars. These critics include: (a) The notion of smart city being am- mate emergency at the global scale is a major task given that there is
biguous; (b) Existence of only limited conceptual frameworks to help limited time and still no clear intergovernmental agreement on the
cities and their administrations understand the grand challenge of this required actions (Harris, 2018). The recent global school strikes for
new paradigm, and; (c) Current efforts not being able to address the climate action (a.k.a. Fridays for Future)—initiated by Nobel Peace
climate emergency—that is the single biggest problem of our time Prize nominee environmental teen activist Great Thunberg—evidence
(Stanley et al., 2009; Ersoy, 2017). that scientists and youth are pressuring politicians to get on-board be-
Against this backdrop, the paper focuses on investigating and fore it is too late.
shedding light on the unclear aspects of the making of smart cities, and In their current conceptual and practical foci, there is no evidence
providing a thorough critique of and insights into the smart city para- that smart cities actually have the capacity, and hence will generate
digm and practice. This investigation is done by reviewing the litera- genuine solutions to unsustainable urbanisation problems—including
ture, elaborating the smart city notion through a multidimensional climate emergency. Mora et al. (2017, p.20) remind us that, “the
conceptual framework, placing global smart city best practices—i.e., knowledge necessary to understand the process of building effective
Songdo, Masdar, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Brisbane—under the mi- smart cities in the real-world has not yet been produced, nor the tools
croscope. The findings of the study disclose the limitations of the smart for supporting the actors involved in this activity”. Having said that, the
city practice in incorporating sustainable development principles whole planning process of smart cities needs to be revisited.
(Yigitcanlar, 2010). Particularly, a crosscheck is required that smart city projects will
actually be creating the desired outcomes targeted at the beginning of
2. The concept of smart cities the planning stage. While this is all well and good in theory, the issue is
that most of the smart city initiatives are not integrated with the urban
Thanks to the advances in science, engineering, and technology, planning mechanisms of that city; besides their fit in the planning
today we live much longer and more prosperous lives than ever before. process is not clearly stated in these projects’ reports Caragliu and Del
It is also predicted that the average of global life expectancy will rise Bo (2019). The main reasons for this are the inexistence of a sound
4.4 years by 2040 (Foreman et al., 2018). We have made huge advances framework to link smart city concept with urban planning/develop-
to create conditions for better health for billions of people. Never- ment processes, and the lack of clarity on the expected outcomes from
theless, this progress is taking a heavy toll on the planet’s natural sys- these projects—such as clear metrics on what the desired sustainability
tems—e.g., ecological and climate emergencies. Consequently, the da- targets are (Yigitcanlar et al., 2019b).
mages made in the natural systems have started to affect dramatically In support of the abovementioned limitations, Mora et al. (2017)
not only our quality of life, but also wellbeing—along with other spe- indicate that the smart cities notion has not been conceptualised ade-
cies of the planet (Albouy et al., 2016). Climate change is the prevailing quately to deliver sustainable urbanism outputs. A reason for this is that
outcome of the damages made. We are entering a new era—the era of cities are not taking advantage of the environmental innovation efforts
disasters—as the world warms 2 °C degree beyond preindustrial levels. for sustainable urban development (Szopik-Depczyńska et al., 2018;
As stated by Glasser (2019, p.3), “across the globe of record-breaking Aldieri et al., 2019a, 2019b).
heatwaves, prolonged droughts, massive bushfires, torrential flooding, On that note, it is useful to share the views of Caragliu et al. (2011,
and record-setting storms” are being observed. p.67) on what makes a city smart: “(a) The utilisation of networked
Advancing technology has created a (false) hope to ease, if not to infrastructure to improve economic and political efficiency and enable
cure, the damages made in the natural systems. The idea of technology social, cultural and urban development; (b) An underlying emphasis on
as the saviour is promoted by the large technology, construction, start- business-led urban development; (c) A strong focus on the aim of
up, and consultancy companies globally (Paroutis et al., 2014). Con- achieving the social inclusion of various urban residents in public ser-
sequently, a new ideology is formed to address our malpractice urba- vices; (d) A stress on the crucial role of high-tech and creative industries
nisation and incorrect energy resource choices with technological in long-run urban growth; (e) Profound attention to the role of social

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T. Yigitcanlar, et al. Land Use Policy 88 (2019) 104187

Fig. 1. Smart city conceptual framework (derived from Yigitcanlar, 2018).

and relational capital in urban development, and; (f) Social and en- view of “a smart city as an organic whole of a network and a linked
vironmental sustainability as a major strategic component for smart urban system”. Additionally, the framework emphasises the role of
cities”. wider urban community as users and developers of the smart city they
There are significant limits of the currently available smart city live in. This is in line with Hughes and Spray (2002) view of providing
frameworks. For instance, they lack of a ‘system of systems’ view necessary technology to engage community in local smart city projects.
(McLoughlin, 1969), and the development drivers are not lucidly in- Furthermore, the framework places urban policy at the heart of smart
tertwined with desired outcomes. The urgency for a consolidated the- city development as a process that is critical to get it right—where
orisation of smart city notion comes from the lack of incorporation of technology is only one of the integral elements. This is in line with
the sustainable development theory (Ingrao et al., 2018; Ioppolo et al., Aurigi (2006) view of strategies for the selection and adoption of
2019). This has led to the development of new conceptual frameworks technology or relevant solutions in appropriate ways.
in recent years. One of these frameworks, by Yigitcanlar (2018), aims to In sum, this conceptual framework establishes a consolidated notion
establish the missing link between smart city development frameworks of smart cities, and seeks ways for achieving desired urban outcomes for
and the sustainable urban planning and development processes. This an effective and efficient smart city transformation. While doing so, the
conceptual framework is illustrated in Fig. 1, and elaborated below. framework also offers the following consolidated definition of what
The conceptual framework (Fig. 1) bases itself on an input-process- smart cities are: “Smart city is an urban locality functioning as a healthy
output-impact model—that also contains a ‘system of systems’ system of systems with sustainable and balanced practices of economic,
view—that is a widely used model in urban and regional planning societal, environmental and governance activities generating desired
(Fincher, 1972; Chadwick, 2013). Assets of a city are the main inputs of outcomes and futures for all humans and non-humans” (Yigitcanlar,
that city’s smart urbanism endeavours. These assets are put into use 2018, p.108).
through various processes. These processes include the key drivers of
technology, community, and policy. Various desired outputs are ex-
3. Methodology
pected to be realised, in the case of assets and drivers are successfully
operationalised. The procedure is to generate sustainable and knowl-
The overall methodological approach of this study is fourfold.
edge-based development outputs—i.e., in the economic, societal, en-
Firstly, the study undertakes a thorough review of the literature on
vironmental, institutional development domains—to achieve desired
smart cities and its environmental sustainability dimension. This review
outcomes. Given the ampleness of the desired outcomes—i.e., pro-
is undertaken with an aim to provide a clearer picture of the concept,
ductivity, innovation, liveability, wellbeing, sustainability, accessi-
and showing the limited understanding on the interpretation of the
bility, governance, planning—, the resulting impacts transform the city
smart city notion by the practitioners.
into smarter one.
Secondly, following the review of the academic literature, the study
The inner workings of the framework have been discussed in the
introduces one of the conceptual smart city frameworks that provides a
literature (Yigitcanlar et al., 2018, 2019a). Instead of repeating these,
comprehensive view of the smart cities from the angle of the input-
we highlight that the framework perceives urban technology only as a
process-output-impact model—presented in Fig. 1.
‘mean’ or an ‘enabler’ to an end—that is to achieve desired urban
Thirdly, the study evaluates the global best smart city practices
outcomes. This perspective is in line with Kanter and Litow (2009, p.2)
using the introduced smart city conceptual framework as a lens (Fig. 1).

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T. Yigitcanlar, et al. Land Use Policy 88 (2019) 104187

international airport. The smart city development is planned to be fully

completed in 2020, and will house about 65,000 residents and 300,000
workers. Songdo is referred to as the most progressive large-scale
greenfield-based smart city project in the world (Kim, 2010).

4.1.2. Technology
Songdo is an outcome of joint work among real-estate developers,
corporate technology companies, and national and local level govern-
ments for building an urban centre from scratch that is filled with
cutting-edge technologically enhanced infrastructure and services. In
Songdo, all of the state-of-the-art technology wired high-rise towers are
received green building ratings, neighbourhoods are smartly designed,
an urban oasis is created modelled on the Central Park of New York, a
robust public transit system is in place, an effective water recycling
Fig. 2. A view from the footpaths of Songdo, 2019. A copyright free photo by
Hon Kim on Unsplash: https://tinyurl.com/y6xrauzu. system is installed, are and the city is wired with ubiquitous broadband
internet connections (Strickland, 2011). The city aims to excel parti-
cularly in bio, nano, information, and ubiquitous technologies, and
Due to the limitations of detailed data collection on the investigated become a prosperous global hub for innovation and technology devel-
smart city case studies, the research uses available academic and grey
opment (Carvalho, 2012). Many leading international and Korean
literature and the research team’s extensive personal knowledge on technology companies located their research and development (R&D)
these cases as the main data sources. Due to the challenges of obtaining
facilities in the city. As for Townsend (2013), these investments are
detailed data for analysis, the study only uses the core part of the smart turning Songdo into a testbed for radio frequency identification (RFID),
city conceptual framework (Fig. 1) that contains the following smart
and a centre for R&D in its crucial smart urban technologies.
city foundations: (a) Technology; (b) Community, and; (c) Policy. These
three foundational elements are adopted in this study as the indicators
4.1.3. Community
of the global smart city best practice analysis. Yigitcanlar and Lee (2014) offer a comprehensive appraisal of
Lastly, the study provides an analysis of the findings from the five Songdo from the angle of economic, societal, spatial and governance
smart city case studies—i.e., Songdo (Korea), Masdar (UAE), perspectives. The top-down development strategy in Songdo is found
Amsterdam (The Netherlands), San Francisco (USA), Brisbane problematic, as without involvement of all stakeholders—including
(Australia). These smart city practices are selected as they are widely local communities—achieving desired outcomes are not possible. For
referred to as the best practices in the literature (Albino et al., 2015; instance, socio-cultural infrastructures have been neglected, as the
Ching and Ferreira, 2015; Russo et al., 2016; Angelidou, 2017). In this
city’s focus is more on international businesses rather than catering for
study, we limit the case study numbers from each major region of the the socio-cultural needs of residents/workers (Millar and Ju-Choi,
world—i.e., Asia, America, Europe, Middle East, Oceania—to one.
2010). Primary reason for this exclusion is that the smart city planning
The following methodological limitations should be noted when process does not involve wide community participation in Korea (Lee
interpreting the study findings: (a) The study undertook a review of the
et al., 2008). Nevertheless, with the high cost technology, innovative
literature on the best practice smart cities; (b) The study relied on the building material and infrastructure investment, the city can only serve
judgements of the research team, consist of five smart city experts, in
to those who can afford and becoming a city for the affluent class only.
interpreting the findings; (c) The study only scrutinised five case study Fig. 2 is a snapshot from an urban scene of Songdo, with two creative
smart city best practices, and; (d) The study adopted a particular smart
class of knowledge workers commuting to work on foot—a reference to
city conceptual framework and its three core elements—i.e., tech- the walkability and highly efficient clientele politics of the city
nology, community, policy—as the lenses to evaluate smart city lessons
(Benedikt, 2016).
of the selected case cities.
4.1.4. Policy
4. The practice of smart cities Stated by Shwayri (2013, p.52), Songdo’s master plan is “based on a
combination of sustainable design principles, such as sustainable modes
There are no best practices yet in line with the consolidated notion of transport and a mix of open and green spaces, which received the
of smart cities discussed in the earlier section. There are, however, some Sustainable City Award in 2008”. However, it is contradictory that the
promising initiatives (those are referred in the literature as good or best city is located on a sea-reclaimed land and caused destruction of pre-
practices) that help us understand the current status of smart city cious wetlands, home to some of the rarest species on the planet. In
practice. The paper investigates some of these best practices—namely Songdo, cutting-edge urban technologies linked with sustainable urban
Songdo (Korea), Masdar (UAE), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), San design practices are targeting to create a utopian future city and life-
Francisco (USA), and Brisbane (Australia). These cities are selected style. However, the top-down policymaking practice generates only
from the five different regions of the world, and they have distinctive technocratic solutions for the smart cities that are built from
smart city characteristics and visions. Focusing on their strength and scratch—such as Songdo. Smart city policy in Korea should be ex-
weaknesses, in the light of the technology, community, and policy panded to the retrofitting of existing cities, as building new smart cities
smart city foundations, could help generate insights on where we are at is not a sustainable approach—increasing the urban footprint—, while
with the smart city practice, and where we want to be. existing cities needs upgrades to become more sustainable.

4.1. Songdo, Korea 4.1.5. Global implications

The city is widely considered as a role model of the Southeast Asian
4.1.1. Background smart city (Strickland, 2011; Angelidou, 2014). The development of
Songdo is an exemplar new city development from Korea based on ubiquitous urban environment is in fast progress in Songdo, and the
the smart city concept (Lee et al., 2008; Shwayri, 2013). Initially in- ambitious smart city initiative provides an optimistic view for estab-
spired from Dubai, Songdo is a master-planned international business lishing smart cities of our time—but only in the case that we favour
hub developed on sea-reclaimed land, located near the Incheon techno-centric smartness over a collective one (technology-community-

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policy smartness). Today, it is widely accepted that Songdo has created to include natural resource depletion, population growth, climate
a new development path for and setting the benchmark high for smart emergency, and the Arab Spring (Cugurullo, 2016). At present, Masdar
urbanism (Kolotouchkina and Seisdedos, 2018). Nevertheless, it is not is for the affluent to reside, and workers of the city commute by private
clear how much hope the Songdo project generates in terms of truly motor vehicles. In the urban plan of the Masdar city only 20% of the
sustainable urbanism. accommodation areas are assigned to the low-income workers—due to
the planning code requirements (De Jong et al., 2019). In spite of the
4.2. Masdar, UAE social sustainability in the vision of Masdar, the city is largely occupied
by affluent population, pointing to exclusiveness of the city (Cugurullo,
4.2.1. Background 2013). Moreover, Mezher et al. (2010, p.757) suggest that “in order to
Masdar is a planned smart city project situated in a desert location ensure social prosperity in Abu Dhabi, all stakeholders must be engaged
near Abu Dhabi. Masdar smart city development project was initiated in in direct coordination and collaboration to develop the right energy
2006, in line with Dhabi’s Vision 2030. Masdar smart city is designed as policies, incentives to invest in projects, ensure the funding is available
a living laboratory for sustainable urban technologies, and one of the for R&D, put in place the needed market mechanisms for diffusing re-
first projects from the Middle East aiming towards a master-planned, newable energy technologies, and build public awareness”.
zero-carbon, sustainable, and smart settlement form (Cugurullo, 2013).
The city is widely viewed as a role model Middle Eastern smart city (De 4.2.4. Policy
Jong et al., 2019). The first stage of development completed in 2011, Masdar adopted a top-down planning and design approach, and so
and soon after the opening Masdar claimed to be the largest planned far, the city has best performed in the environmental domain of sus-
development in the world that solely uses renewable energy sources. tainable urban development. As much as smart urban technology uti-
Today, the city is seen as an emerging global clean-technology cluster lisation, another reason of the success was replicating the traditional
located on one of the world’s most challenging geographies fighting for Arabic urban form—such as city’s shape, orientation of streets, wind-
a sustainable urban development powered by renewable energy. As for catcher, courtyard, the pattern of streets, and density and mixed use.
Sgouridis and Kennedy (2010), when the development is completed in Hassan et al. (2016) compared urban form attributes of the medieval
2025, there will have 50,000 residents, 1500 clean-tech companies, Cairo with the modern Masdar, and revealed that the success of Masdar
start-ups staffed by 10,000 new employees, a research university and lays in pursuing, learning and including characteristics of traditional
60,000 daily commuting workers will be generated on site. Fig. 3 is a city. As a consequence of the planning strategy, unlike the other iconic
snapshot from the solar energy fields of Abu Dhabi— the world’s largest cities of the region—such as Doha and Dubai—, Masdar does not ac-
single-site solar project with a capacity of 1.177 GW (Kennedy, 2019). commodated any high-rise buildings. As for the environmental sus-
tainability policy, as highlighted by Cugurullo (2016), in Masdar, sus-
4.2.2. Technology tainability strongly links environmentalism with consumerism.
According to the plans residents’ transport needs will be addressed Although, Masdar is one of the first attempts in constructing carbon-
with high-technology smart and active mobility solutions—that in- neutral cities, it creates hope for the development of a sustainable smart
cludes an autonomous and electrified public transport system, and city. However, the Masdar project is not economically feasible. The
walking and cycling network. The power for the city is supplied from project heavily capitalises on environmental concerns to generate profit
22-hectare field designated for solar panels. Additionally, rooftops of (Cugurullo, 2016). Nevertheless, the project not being able to attract as
buildings are also covered with solar panels. Shared autonomous elec- much as innovative industries as hoped to be along with the impacts of
tric vehicles are planned to be replacing cars in the city. The design of global financial crisis forces Masdar to scale back its budget and am-
the walls of the buildings reduces demand for air conditioning by 55%. bitions (Mezher et al., 2011).
All buildings have movement sensors that cut electricity consumption
by 51% and water usage by 55% (Hopwood, 2010). Technology and
innovation sectors are also planned to be the primary economic activ- 4.2.5. Global implications
ities of the city. Despite the desert climate, Masdar encourages walk- Although, most of the ideas to develop Masdar into a truly smart
ability through using smart solutions. Smart innovations in comfortable and sustainable city were innovative and ambitious, not so many of
walkability include: Smart wind tower, sheds, shelter, bus stop, street them could find application ground at the city scale. For instance, the
furniture, and pavement (Kamel, 2013). autonomous electric public transit system, which is the flagship feature
of Masdar’s car-free strategy, has been discarded due technology not
being able to meet the city’s transport needs. There are also delays in
4.2.3. Community
At the conception stage of the Masdar projects challenges were the development of the planned light rail network and metro system.
Additionally, it is realised that construction of large solar panels would
mostly economy-driven. However, today these challenges are expanded
be less effective than anticipated due to local dust storms, which are
reducing the solar power output at least by 40% (Crot, 2013). Similarly,
the hydrogen power plant project in Abu Dhabi was placed on hold due
to lack of resources and change in the project priorities. These down-
grades, due to either technology miscalculations or the economic
downturn, pushed the city administration to change the city brand from
‘zero-carbon’ to ‘carbon-neutral’ (Mezher et al., 2010). Similar to
Songdo, Masdar has also been a pioneer testbed to trial smart urbanism
concepts due to the bold steps of the national administration. While the
attempt is commendable and provided learnings of what works and
what does not, the Masdar project does not managed to showcase a
successful smart and sustainable urbanism practice. Both Songdo and
Masdar brings an important questions in mind: Should we focus on
transforming cities step-by-step into smart ones, rather than building
new ones from scratch at scale? Furthermore, another key question to
Fig. 3. A view from the photovoltaic fields of Abu Dhabi, 2019. A copyright free consider is: How can the near bankruptcy of major smart city devel-
photo by David Mark on Pixabay: https://tinyurl.com/yyj98uxm. opment fantasies, such as Middle-Eastern smart cities, be avoided?

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4.3. Amsterdam, the Netherlands living lab programs. The Amsterdam Smart City platform is an im-
portant connector in this respect as it has evolved in to a facilitator of
4.3.1. Background the smart city community in the Amsterdam region (Van Winden et al.,
The City of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Economic Board, internet op- 2016).
erators jointly initiated the Smart City Amsterdam project in 2009.
Smart City Amsterdam aims to turn itself into a more sustainable city by 4.3.4. Policy
working along two principles to: (a) Enable stakeholders to apply in- Planners expect to boost the local economy through high-tech in-
novative technologies, and; (b) Stimulate behavioural change with end frastructure investment that also would cut emissions by 40% by 2025,
users (Sauer, 2012). The starting point of the project, thus, was not which would also convert Amsterdam into a smart city (Dameri, 2014).
merely providing technical solutions, but the collaboration, co-creation, Amsterdam smart city project also established and maintained strong
and partnership between stakeholders within the city for moving to- linkages with a number of other European smart city initiatives, in-
wards sustainable and smart solutions. The project, hence, was devel- cluding NiCE, Citadel, Digital cities, Open cities, and Common4EU
oped in a quadruple-helix partnership model between public, private, (Manville et al., 2014). Amsterdam shares data openly with wider
academia and community. The operational aim of the smart city project community and provides critical info on transport environment and so
was to help achieve ambitious sustainability targets set in Europe on through a dedicated city dashboard—similar to many other Eur-
(Manville et al., 2014). opean smart cities, e.g., Birmingham, Dublin, London. Furthermore,
Amsterdam is one of the most walkable and cyclable cities in the world
(Lehmann, 2016). The smart city policy assures increased green and
4.3.2. Technology
active transport options in the city.
Different than previously presented Songdo and Masdar cases,
technology is not central in Amsterdam’s smart city approach, although
4.3.5. Global implications
the testing and implementation of smart city technologies has been
As in the most of the European smart city projects, Amsterdam also
integrated into most projects (Van Winden et al., 2016). However, the
adopts a retrofitting approach in its efforts for developing the
smart city initiative of Amsterdam is still famous not only engaging
Amsterdam Metropolitan Area into a flourishing smart city. It has
technology solutions for a smarted city development, but also using the
successfully integrated both environmental and societal goals with
smart city living labs to engage local communities to determine in a
economic and technologic ones. Hence, the city could be considered as
bottom-up manner solutions to the city and its residents. According to
a role model European smart city. This smart city development is
Van Winden et al. (2016, p.12), in the roll-out of a smart city initiative,
managed to embed all kinds of digital infrastructure and networks,
“a technology or solution that was successfully tested and developed in
devices, sensors and actuators; as a result, the volume of data produced
the pilot project is commercialised/brought to the market, widely ap-
has grown exponentially. Smart city data managers need to pay special
plied in an organisation, or rolled out across the city. Possibilities for
attention to this issue as stated by Kitchin (2014), this may create a
rollout largely emerge from living lab projects (such as Climate street
concern with the data quality, fidelity, security, management and va-
and WeGo), where companies can test beta versions of new products/
lidity of analytics that interpreted and acted upon. Furthermore, un-
solutions” within a local community. Fig. 4 is a snapshot from one of
derlined by Townsend (2013), even though Amsterdam is widely re-
Amsterdam’s canals that self-driving/autonomous boats—so-called
cognised as a global leader in smart solutions for sustainable urban
‘roboat’—are being trailed (Vincent, 2016).
outcomes, emissions generated from the city are still rising 1% an-
nually. This brings down the issue to the non-renewable energy use, and
4.3.3. Community not addressing the climate emergency seriously.
In 2013, this smart city platform of Amsterdam established part-
nerships with over 80 partners that are engaged in a number of smart 4.4. San Francisco, USA
city initiatives. These initiatives focused on a variety of areas including
over 40 projects on smart living, smart working, smart mobility, smart 4.4.1. Background
public space, and open data themes. These projects particularly aimed San Francisco sees smart city strategies as an important method to
to support sustainable real-estate development, company energy con- build its sustainable urban future. In recent years, many Silicon Valley
sumption improvement, and employee awareness to work in a smarter based companies have made a move to base their headquarters in San
manner. Besides, the following initiatives that deployed solutions in the Francisco, due to high quality of life and place offerings to companies’
Smart City Amsterdam are worth pointing out: Climate Street, Ship-to- talented staff, along with affordability and tax benefits. Today, the city
grid, Smart building management systems, and Health Lab (Dameri, is home for a large number of internet-based companies. San Francisco
2014). Initial smart city project was top-down in nature, but later on offers large number of free Wi-Fi hotspots in various public locations.
community input and involvement was also considered and became an For example, on a main road downtown, there is about five-kilometre-
integral part of the smart city initiative—such as earlier mentioned long free Wi-Fi zone (Hudson, 2010; Zhu et al., 2017). Fig. 5 is a
snapshot from San Francisco’s famously twisty Lombard Street, which is
a symbol of smart solutions the city generates—the crookedest street in
the world was built in 1922 in its unusual form to reduce the slope to
allow driving (Leadbeater, 2019).

4.4.2. Technology
San Francisco is renowned amongst the global trendsetters when it
comes to smart urban technology initiatives. San Francisco has an
ambitious goal that is becoming a carbon-free city by 2030. The city has
implemented a number of incentive programs that involves smart
technology applications. For example, ‘SF Energy Map’ is a tool that
tracks solar and wind energy potentials of locations across the city.
With this application, residents and businesses can check their solar
Fig. 4. A view from one of Amsterdam’s canals, 2019. A copyright free photo by potential. Similarly, ‘Energy Use Challenge’ is an application for sharing
Ethan Hu on Unsplash: https://tinyurl.com/y5ja88y6. energy bill data, where this data to be used to enhance energy efficiency

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T. Yigitcanlar, et al. Land Use Policy 88 (2019) 104187

e-government portal.

4.4.5. Global implications

San Francisco is considered as one of the greenest cities and the
clean-technology capital of North America. The city has various smart
city support mechanisms for its clean-technology and innovation firms
that eventually contribute to the city’s economic development, neigh-
bourhood revitalisation, and sustainable operations. For example, the
‘living innovation zones’ project helps businesses use city assets to de-
monstrate new and emerging technologies. Likewise, ‘smart grid’ and
‘LED street-light conversion’ projects help the city save energy (Lee
et al., 2014). A critical evaluation of the functions and effectiveness of
the smart city framework of San Francisco by Lee et al. (2014, p.84)
indicate the following key characteristics and issues of the city’s twist
Fig. 5. A view from San Francisco’s Lombard Street, 2019. A copyright free
photo by Brandon Nelson on Unplash: https://tinyurl.com/y3j4ykhp. on smart urban technology utilisation: “Urban openness; Service in-
novation; Partnership formation; Urban pro-activeness; Smart city in-
frastructure integration; Smart city governance”. The city, henceforth,
programs. Likewise, ‘Honest Buildings’ is a software platform focuses on could be considered as a role model North American smart city. San
buildings to help buildings save energy (Dahlquist and Fell, 2015).
Francisco showcases a successful model of urban transformation;
Moreover, ‘SF Park’ is an application to improve parking in the city however, it comes with social costs that require further attention and
through real-time parking information. This way traffic congestion can
solid policies to tackle.
be avoided or eased, less energy is consumed, and consequently lesser
pollutants are released to the atmosphere. Additionally, ‘ChargePoint’ is
4.5. Brisbane, Australia
an application to help track usage and functional status of electric ve-
hicle charging stations. The app provides real-time status of the char-
4.5.1. Background
gers, and generates long-term reports. Furthermore, today, San Fran- Brisbane is one of the early adopters of the smart city concept.
cisco is 41% renewable energy powered, and the city houses over 300 Queensland’s 1998 Smart State Strategy underlines the importance of
LEED certified buildings (Scheer, 2012). San Francisco has been up- Brisbane’s, the capital city of the state, transformation into a smart city.
grading transport services through smart mobility technologies that The smart cities policy, initiated in 2007, was an applied economic
have advanced urban policy aims in the arena of transport governance development and land use macro plan for Brisbane as the nucleus for
for sustainability (Davis, 2018). This resulted in increased public smart state development (Yigitcanlar et al., 2012). Smart cities policy
transport service quality and efficiency in the city/region. San Francisco
recommended various strategies to turn Brisbane into a prosperous
is the home of ride hailing service companies such as Uber and Lyft, and smart city. These were: (a) Creating a legible structure plan; (b) Uniting
a trial city for shared autonomous vehicle projects (Yigitcanlar et al.,
disparate precincts; (c) Creating definitive pedestrian spines; (d)
2019c). Linking the city centre by mass transit; (e) Defining a knowledge cor-
ridor; (f) Investing on sustainability; (g) Developing effective planning
4.4.3. Community processes, and; (h) Developing a smart city model (Hortz, 2016). These
Primarily, San Francisco’s high concentration of talent base, strong strategies also resulted in the development of Brisbane’s knowledge
entrepreneurial culture, and close proximity to the world’s most in- corridor—a milestone project that connects all key innovative institutes
novative technology cluster contributes to the establishment of an of the city physically. Today, the knowledge corridor is highly active
urban ecosystem in the city that accelerates smart and sustainable and Brisbane’s global innovation districts are gaining international re-
urban outcomes. A number of apps use the open data source provided cognition, turning city into a prosperous smart city (Pancholi et al.,
through Data SF, such as ‘Metro San Francisco’, ‘Transit Bay’, and 2015a; Esmaeilpoorarabi et al., 2018).
‘Walkonomics’ are among the apps that are used widely by local re-
sidents to improve their mobility in the region (Brown et al., 2011). One 4.5.2. Technology
of the big smart city challenges of the city is provision of affordable The city invested in improving its road infrastructure, as well as
housing to its residents. The popularity of the city has attracted tech- public transport system, by developing a number of tunnels to ease rush
nology companies and talented workers, and in consequence property hour traffic congestion (Dur and Yigitcanlar, 2015). In these projects,
prices sky rocketed in the city—and leading to social problems (Palm high technology smart traffic systems are utilised including digital
and Niemeier, 2017). message signs, CCTV cameras, and Bluetooth sensor devices to deliver
notifications to motorists and improve the road intelligence. Brisbane
4.4.4. Policy also adopted Sydney’s Coordinated Adaptive Transport System to
The city is widely acknowledged as a leader in embracing sustain- manage traffic signals, and installed pedestrian countdown timers.
ability and smart urban development policy and practice as it excels in Additionally, Brisbane has installed numerous way-finding devices for
smart and sustainability initiatives. San Francisco has an ambitious goal people with vision impairment. Furthermore, free Wi-Fi systems are
of achieving zero-waste by 2020. In order to zero-waste goal, the city installed in the major city parks, libraries, shopping malls, and sub-
introduced various smart city initiatives. For instance, ‘RecycleWhere’ urban shopping strips, and this is followed by erection of smart poles in
is an online tool that provides residents with recycling, reuse, and the major public spaces for big data collection (Hamstead et al., 2018).
disposal options. Similarly, ‘Zero Waster Signmaker’ is another online Fig. 6 is a snapshot of a target smart pole location—to collect data on
tool that residents and business owners can create compost, recycling, pedestrian and cyclist traffic, construction and traffic noise levels, flood
and landfill signs for their homes and businesses. Because of these in- levels and air quality, among other potential uses including hosting
itiatives, the city has reached to 80% waste diversion rate (Kaufman CCTV cameras, free Wi-Fi/5 G and USB charging points (Stone, 2019).
et al., 2010). Another important development that supports the smart
city formation of San Francisco is the open data legislation that passed 4.5.3. Community
in 2009. This pioneering legislation has made all city departments to Brisbane pursues an effective smart city vision with its sustainable
provide public access for all non-confidential datasets through the city’s brand of smart urbanism (Hollands, 2008). Brisbane is amongst the

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5. Discussion and conclusion

The smart city literature and investigated best practices—i.e.,

Songdo, Masdar, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Brisbane—have shown
that we are at the beginning of a new era that technology and the city
are converging (Stimmel, 2016). At present, smart city is a highly
popular topic in urban policy circles/debates in many cities of the
world. However, our knowledge on smart cities are highly limited, and
our expectations from them are unrealistic and full of speculations. This
brings serious criticism and scepticism to the smart city discourse. In
line with the views of Vanolo (2014), there are some underlying issues
associated with smart cities, as they are increasingly becoming an
idealised development paradigm, without proper critical debates and
politics.
Fig. 6. A view from a target smart pole location from Brisbane, 2019. A
copyright free photo by Photo by Michael on Unsplash: https://tinyurl.com/ The notion of smart city, despite some promising attempts, has not
y2rudeel. been conceptualised adequately yet. The lack of conceptualisation is
mainly due to perceiving the ‘smart’ in smart cities as technological
smartness rather than human/decision smartness. This is evident in
limited cities that committed to economic growth and the environment
some of the investigated case studies—e.g., Masdar, Songdo. They
sustainability, simultaneously, while developing mechanisms for com-
present, in general, the development and application of advance tech-
munity involvement in major urban policy decisions. For instance,
nology much more than the development and implementation of cor-
Brisbane has utilised the smart label in conjunction with notions of the
rect decision or policy. This issue has resulted in so far not being able to
‘sustainable city’ with regards to its smart water, water recycling,
build a truly smart city.
draught combatting measures, resilient infrastructure, and subtropical
As the study findings reveal, different approaches are followed in
building and urban design programs (Pancholi et al., 2015b). While at
different corners of the globe for the conceptualisation and practice of
the sustainable urbanism front, the city has gone a long way, in terms of
smart cities. In Southeast Asia, smart cities are used as a vehicle to
smart urban technology development, adoption and deployment the
create national identity, boost economy through technological in-
city is still behind most of the other cities from abroad claiming the
novation, and test and implement technologies on large scale urban
smart city title (Berger, 2019). As for the community programs, the city
development projects. On the contrary, in Europe, North America, and
has been committed to the smart community development program
Oceania, the smart cities model is mostly adopted to improve the urban
(Alizadeh, 2015).
and household quality of living, along with establishment of a more
sustainable urban future—but generally in relatively small-scale pro-
4.5.4. Policy jects.
Following the success of smart cities policy, in 2009 Brisbane City One of the critical issues behind the limited large-scale application
Council launched ‘CitySmart’ to help make Brisbane Australia’s most of smart city projects is the reservations towards how the smart city
sustainable city. Unlike the previous policy attempts, CitySmart is fi- model is perceived. Today there are a number of self-claimed smart
nancially supported to deliver projects. Major CitySmart projects in- cities (Hollands, 2008) based on the only fact that they are using
clude: (a) Australia’s first district cooling energy system to provide technology tools. While smart technology is critical, technology alone
cheaper/more efficient air conditioning for CBD buildings; (b) ‘Reduce cannot create smart cities, as it takes more than just the state-of-the-art
Your Juice’, an energy efficiency program tailored specifically for our technological solutions to transform cities into truly smart and sus-
city’s low-income young adults; (c) ‘Queensland Watt Savers’, which tainable ones.
supplied more than 300 SMEs easy-to-use tools and expertise to reduce Moving away from a heavily smart technology-centric view to a
energy consumption and related expenses; (d) ‘EzyGreen’, a residential smart decision or smart policy view may change the reserved attitudes
energy reduction program, which engaged 61,000 Brisbane households towards these projects. As identified by Yigitcanlar and Lee (2014),
to save over $10 million in annual energy costs, and; (e) City’s first current failures in the development of smart cities will help us not to
electric vehicle charging station (Muriuki et al., 2016). make the same mistakes, and plan, design, develop and manage the
next generation cities much better than we have done before. However,
we might not have the luxury of time for too many trial and errors in
4.5.5. Global implications the era of climate emergency.
Brisbane, with its long history on smart and sustainable city in- We will, hence, have to establish a consolidated smart city paradigm
itiatives, could be seen as a role model Oceanian smart city. The city, as soon as possible to form a role model for the cities of the future—-
today, is capable of collecting and analysing real-time data to improve such as the post-Anthropocene city that provides quadruple-bottom-line
liveability, in the case the city puts more efforts in investing in the sustainability for all humans and non-humans (Yigitcanlar et al.,
technological architecture and collaborates with businesses to realise its 2019b). In other words, in line with the views of Ratti and Townsend
potential. At this front, presently Brisbane is following the European (2011), more than smart systems that improve efficiency in the city,
information sharing model—a popular smart city practice (e.g., what needed is to make the city itself ‘smart’—that includes its people,
Amsterdam, Birmingham, Dublin, London) to share information in other words smart community.
through city dashboards and digital public displays—by adopting a The making of successful smart cities highly depends on adequately
citywide dashboard to enable to monitor weather, energy consumption linking conceptual developments in the field with sustainable practices.
and traffic flow. There is no fully-fledged statutory smart city policy in So far, as Wiig (2015) indicates the smart city practice is a techno-
the city yet. However, Brisbane has developed a brief smart city agenda utopian policy in motion, its results are in the outward self-promotion
policy in 2017—‘Smart, Connected Brisbane’—a first step toward an of cities in attracting multinational corporations that are selling urban
umbrella smart city strategy for Brisbane (BCC, 2017). Despite Brisbane and technology products.
being a policy rich/obsessive city, the city lacks of a clear overarching This paper advocates the adoption of a comprehensive view on the
smart city strategy to guide the transformation of the city into a smart smart city conceptualisation to inform policymaking and urban plan-
and sustainable one. ning and development practices. Deliberated by Yigitcanlar et al.

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T. Yigitcanlar, et al. Land Use Policy 88 (2019) 104187

(2019b), the renewed smart city approach carries a high potential to framework be developed to guide effective smart city policy devel-
become an ideal model to address the climate emergency and build the opment?
cities of the future. However, realisation of this potential depends on e) How can such a policy framework assist smart city transformation
the adoption of three critical guiding principles. These principles are, and support local governments and practice achieving their desired
the smart city notion to: (a) Contain a system of systems approach; (b) outcomes?
Adopt a balanced quadruple-bottom-line sustainable urban develop-
ment perspective, and; (c) Mainstream the urban metabolism approach Acknowledgements
(Kennedy and Hoornweg, 2012; Ioppolo et al., 2014).
Based on the conducted literature review and investigated smart The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
city best practices, we compile the following insights into the making of interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
successful smart cities. ence the work reported in this paper. This research did not receive any
Firstly, in terms of economic development in smart cities (smart specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-
economy), we need to give our cities the capability of developing their for-profit sectors. The authors thank the Editor-in-Chief and three
technologies unique to their own developmental problems and needs. anonymous referees for their invaluable comments on an earlier version
This in turn contributes to the establishment of a local innovation of the manuscript.
economy and prosperity that is a central element of smart cities.
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