What can Smart City policies in emerging economies actually achieve? Conceptual considerations and empirical insights from India

Highlights

• Our critically constructive view on Smart City strategies for emerging economies transcends skeptical academic debates.

• A conceptual focus on evolutionary Smart City process qualities emphasizes potential governance achievements.

• The results of qualitative empirical research in five cities included in India’s 100 Smart Cities Mission are presented.

• We reveal eight aspects of inhibitive path dependency and eight evolutionary improvements instigated by Smart City agency.

Abstract

Smart City (SC) strategies that aim at fostering sustainable urban development through the systemic implementation of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) continue to appeal to national and municipal governments despite of increasingly skeptical academic debates. Especially in Asian emerging economies aspirations to create SCs are widespread, yet seem hopelessly illusionary in many cases and might actually harm rather than benefit most citizens. This paper acknowledges these critical views, yet also accentuates constructive perspectives on SC achievements that offer rays of hope especially for cities in less developed countries. We propose to emphasize influential process qualities of SC strategies, which can instigate broader governance and institutional transformations locally, rather than mainly looking at the technical product features of final SC settings. Refined conceptual distinctions between the product and process view on achievable outcomes of SC schemes are suggested which also borrow from evolutionary geography perspectives. To illustrate our propositions, the example of India’s Smart Cities Mission launched in 2015 is used. While the planned refurbishment of urban spaces in India is rightfully criticized by some, our own qualitative empirical research – a multiple case study analysis of five SC schemes in South India in spring 2018 – reveals several promising process qualities besides implementation deficiencies. Our study finds eight mechanisms of detrimental path dependency that obstruct SC progress, but also eight mechanisms of positive evolutionary change with respect to urban governance procedures. Making agents in emerging economies aware of these potential outcomes that reach beyond a mere urban technology focus can inspire more effective forthcoming SC strategies and policies.

Introduction

The Smart City (SC) notion, proclaimed as state-of-the-art policy strategy towards sustainable urban futures based on advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs), the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data analyses (Angelidou et al., 2018, De Jong et al., 2015, Ferrero and Vesco, 2015), is more and more ambivalently debated. The highly diverse, fragmented field of SC research (see review analyses by Cocchia, 2014, Meijer and Bolívar, 2016, Mora et al., 2017, Mora et al., 2018a) is, on the one hand, widely characterized by constructive views. Major themes refer, for instance, to technocratic approaches towards SCs, telling how technical experts continue searching for adequate ICT solutions needed to realize a functional SC (examples are Bifulco et al., 2016, Dameri and Paola, 2017, Song et al., 2017). Scholars of urban development and planning have holistically conceptualized the SC idea as a major chance for amalgamating technological progress and urban sustainability goals (Azevedo Guedes et al., 2018, Bisello et al., 2016, Dameri and Paola, 2017, Ferrero and Vesco, 2015, Komninos, 2015, Kourtit and Nijkamp, 2012). In this context, they also discuss what a SC essentially is and what it should achieve (Albino et al., 2015, Bibri and Krogstie, 2017, De Jong et al., 2015, Glasmeier and Christopherson, 2015, Kitchin, 2015, Komninos et al., 2016). Beyond theory debates, works offer concrete advice on how to practically implement or govern SC schemes (for instance, Allwinkle and Cruickshank, 2011, Jaekel, 2015, Rodríguez-Bolívar, 2015, Sureshchandra et al., 2016, Stratigea, 2015, Walravens and Ballon, 2013, Zygiaris, 2013). While studies also discuss how to measure SC progress or achievements (Debnath et al., 2014, O’Grady and O’Hare, 2012, Shah et al., 2017), sound methodologies and empirical approaches still need to be developed. A growing range of empirical studies, though, already analyze, monitor, compare and categorize ‘real’ SC cases or planning documents (Angelidou et al., 2018, Bisello et al., 2016, Mora et al., 2018b, Neirotti et al., 2014, Vu and Hartley, 2018).

On the other hand, critical voices are rising. The lavish use of the SC label, tagged on swelling numbers of urban improvement schemes all over the world, is wearing smooth the potentially powerful grip of this term, hollows out and depreciates its conceptual values (Kitchin, 2015). Several works point out the considerable socio-economic and governance challenges associated with implementing SCs, which require attention besides issues of technical feasibility (Bibri and Krogstie, 2017, Boykova et al., 2016, Fromhold-Eisebith, 2017, Meijer and Bolívar, 2016, Vanolo, 2016). Especially the SC agency of large technology companies that strive for gaining huge profits from building and running the ICT infrastructure and exploiting Big Data opportunities (evidenced in Mora et al., 2018a) raises concern: While a SC cannot be realized without professional support for equipping public spaces with digital information boards, sensors or control devices, many fear that SC approaches become the playground of capitalist business interests, rather than serving local people’s real needs (Söderström et al., 2014, Townsend, 2013, Viitanen and Kingston, 2014). Overall, dangers of SC schemes to aggravate power asymmetries, further marginalize underprivileged citizens or widen gaps of democratic legitimization are passionately debated in critical urban geography circles (Bauriedl et al., 2018, Glasmeier and Christopherson, 2015, Kummitha and Crutzen, 2017).

Despite of these skeptical deliberations, the SC model relentlessly appeals to national and city governments also in Asian emerging economies (Cocchia, 2014, Hayat, 2016, Thuzar, 2011, Vu and Hartley, 2018). Less developed countries in particular need effective tools for urban transformation due to widespread infrastructure deficiencies, heavily depleted environmental qualities, and dysfunctional governance settings (WBGU, 2016). Yet, they may be most susceptible to SC related risks and dangers, easily falling prey to greedy international corporations or path dependency traps of exacerbating injustices and corruption. The study by Vu and Hartley (2018) on Vietnam, although expecting SC policies to moderate corruption, confirms threats of lacking institutional readiness and adequate strategy. No wonder that also India’s 100 Smart Cities Mission (SCM), officially launched in 2015, has raised ample criticism (Datta, 2015, and commentaries in a special issue of Dialogues in Human Geography; Das, 2017, HLRN – Housing and Land Rights Network, 2018, Hoelscher, 2016, Raparthi, 2015). Conversely, more positively toned papers highlight India’s chances to use SC policies for making citizens profit from ICT competences or fostering urban sustainability, for instance, through cleaner production (Adapa, 2018, Madakam and Ramaswamy, 2015).

This situation complicates to adequately assess and advise SC policies in emerging economies like India from a scientific angle. Should we keep on underscoring the major problems, or rather engage in revealing the potential positive achievements associated with SC policies in these countries? This paper does both in terms of a reflective, critically constructive approach: while aspirations to politically create veritable SCs may be a hopeless illusion for less developed countries, rays of hope can still be found when regarding SCs less as a product, but rather as a process. This perspective reflects a focus on governance and institutional transformation issues already conveyed by SC literatures (Bibri and Krogstie, 2017, Boykova et al., 2016, Rodríguez-Bolívar, 2015, Meijer and Bolívar, 2016, Mora et al., 2018b). We add to this discourse, first, by suggesting a conceptual frame that matters especially for assessing SC cases in emerging economies and introduces evolutionary geography perspectives to the debate (Boschma & Martin, 2010), second, by offering the rare example of qualitative empirical research (multiple case study on South Indian cities in spring 2018) on SC policy effects in an Asian developing country (other works assess policy approaches, but not outcomes: Hoelscher, 2016, Shah et al., 2017, Vu and Hartley, 2018), and third, by showing how SC schemes help cities break out of previous, less efficacious paths and venture towards new horizons. While acknowledging skeptical debates, we want to stress that SC policies can still trigger progress towards urban sustainability and better governance also in less developed countries.

Our main research question “What can Smart City policies in emerging economies actually achieve?“ (paper title) in detail raises several sub-questions:

• In which respects do the product and process views on SC policy achievements conceptually differ, suggesting a stronger focus on evolutionary process qualities for cities in emerging economies?

• How has India taken up the SC model as a guideline of sustainable urban development, reflecting conflicts between product related conceptual rigor and process related national-local adaptation needs?

• Which process achievements has SC policy implementation instigated in the studied South Indian cases, which indicate beneficial transformation trajectories that generally deserve more dedicated support in SC strategies in emerging economies?

The next section outlines our conceptual distinction between the product and process views on SC strategies and brings in evolutionary perspectives. Then we use the example of India’s SCM to apply the product and process related approach to assessing policy achievements. While the entire program has been heavily contested since its inception, a closer look at several cases through the evolutionary process lens reveals a more positive, yet still fairly mixed picture. As our qualitative research in five designated South Indian SCs shows, policy implementation is in fact hampered by eight distinct path dependency and lock-in problems that reflect India’s development conditions. Conversely, we also identify eight encouraging process changes which offer a moderately positive outlook for future urban development trajectories. After critically discussing our results, we finally derive broader policy recommendations that reach beyond the Indian case.