A comparison of comparisons: evidence from an international comparative study of “smart cities”

Keywords: Comparison; Inter-urban referencing; Policy mobilities; Smart cities
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Every year the list lengthens of cities with some sort of “smart city” policy. In some examples, it emerges as the latest in a long line of urban digital and information communication policies. In other cities, the introduction of the notion of the “smart city” constitutes a departure from past approaches to public policy. Additionally, the more studies emerge of actual smart city policies the less definitional agreement there seems to be. Perhaps put more accurately, the more we know about smart cities in practice the clearer it becomes that what it means differs from one city to another. Nevertheless, that we have witnessed in the last two decades the “repeated instance” of smart cities in cities around the world seems incontrovertible. Like so much urban policy in the current era, how a city arrives at and makes up its own version of the “smart policy” often involves comparison and exchange, learning and referencing. This is the work of actually existing urban comparisons. This paper draws upon an international comparative research project involving qualitative case study work in Barcelona, Calgary, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei and Toronto. The paper argues that it is hard to over-estimate the place of cities in the world and the world in cities when understood through the lens of policy-making. This demands we attend to both the routes and the roots present in a city’s smart city policy.