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Legitimacy in Smart Cities Governance: insights from some European case studies

Citizenship
Civil Society
Democracy
Governance
Local Government
Political Participation
Public Administration
Public Policy
Giorgia Nesti
Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies, University of Padova
Giorgia Nesti
Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies, University of Padova

Abstract

International organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union agree that population growth, and problems correlated to environmental, social, and economic sustainability would affect future urban developments (European Union Regional Policy, 2011; UN, 2014). For several academics and practitioners, nevertheless, cities will be able to meet these challenges only if they adopt a strategy that make them ‘smarter’. The concept of the 'smart city' designates an innovative paradigm for city governance that aims to integrate the various visions of urban, economic, environmental, institutional, technological and social change into a holistic view of sustainable development (Caragliu, Del Bo, & Nijkamp, 2011). Smart cities, in particular, are committed to adopting innovative solutions to reduce CO2 emissions, which is achieved through ICT-based solutions and a multi-stakeholder partnership, steered by local government (European Parliament, 2014). This approach has known a stunning popularity in recent years, as several municipalities adopted a smart city strategy to innovate urban policies. The high number of articles published on the topic also proves this singular trend. Remarkably, the literature on smart cities is mainly focussed on technological issues, that is to say it mainly deals with products and processes that should be implemented to fully exploit the ‘smartness commitment’. Yet other dimensions such as the political implications that result from adopting a smart city approach are not thoroughly investigated. By the same token, in a recent article Meijer and Rodriguez Bolivar (2015) argue for more in-depth theoretical and empirical studies on the political dimension of smart cities and, particularly, on ‘legitimacy claims of smart cities’. Using the existent literature and data collected through an extensive qualitative research carried out in six European Smart cities (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bologna, Padova, Turin and Vienna) the paper analyses what does ‘legitimacy’ mean for political actors involved in governing the smart city and how this question is tackled and possibly solved by them. Since the smart city approach to urban governance is transforming the local policy-making and the way policies and services are managed, is this approach transforming the notion of legitimacy, too? And if so, how?