Smart City: From Concept To Implementation

The development of smart cities is a result of the implementation of projects, namely, organizational projects intended to achieve unique results. The results of projects enabling the implementation of the idea of smart cities are specific products or services, as well as specific technological or organisational solutions. The uniqueness of Smart City Projects (SCPs) lies in the fact that they are characterised by a specific, unique configuration of tangible and intangible resources and the creation of new values and ideas, as well as the implementation of different solutions to particular local social problems than to date. Other than the unique results, the distinctive features of the projects include a strictly defined implementation time (the so-called project temporality), the need to use differentiated resources, as well as implementation risk (related to the implementation of the project) and operational risk (related to the use of the resulting solutions).

The article has the objective of (1) presenting four interpretations of the term smart city, which are not competitive with each other, but even so, municipal authorities knowingly choose the so-called strong preference, as well as (2) showing the conditions for implementing SCPs, which is treated as one of the mechanisms of implementing the idea of the smart city. We also draw attention in the article to the logic of preferences, which is rooted in every decision-making process of municipal authorities, which were forced to make constant choices in conditions of conflicting expectations of stakeholders.

Having objectives is an inherent feature of every organisation, regardless of its type (public or private), the sector in which it operates, its size or age. A city is not only an area but primarily an organization (a socio-economic system) that pursues its own interests, just as takes place with respect to companies. At the economic level, a city is a separate tangible and organisational socio-economic system, the overriding objective of which is to satisfy the collective needs of the local population. In legal terms, the interests of the local community are identified through the recognition of the city as an entity of rights and obligations and the establishment of an appropriate guarantee of the legal articulation of its interests.

The interests of the local community are specified in the process in which the municipal authorities, which are responsible for creating the city's policies (the transport, urban, economic, educational, environmental and municipal waste management policy, as well as combating crime, etc.) in a specified area, set objectives, after which they implement and enforce them. A city's policy is understood as a collection of operational and long-term objectives related to satisfying the needs of the residents. The process in which the municipal authorities determine (identify) the objectives comprising the individual policies of the city is not indifferent to the residents, as these objectives directly or indirectly affect them and, in this sense, have a general public attribute.

The hierarchisation of objectives is a part of the mechanism of creating a city's policies. A city's specified policy regarding its objectives must be choice, whilst the choice from the abstract point of view involves:

the establishment of what is important to the policymakers and the distinction of these possible objectives from everything that is unimportant to the policymakers;

Formulating this differently, hierarchisation (choice) involves the determination of a set of objectives and putting order to them according to the accepted criterion of importance.

The hierarchisation of objectives, that is, the determination of the criterion for assessing the chosen objectives made by individual people and small business entities may be – and sometimes is – of a fully subjective nature. Account does not need to be taken of the preferences of other people; it is sufficient that they take into account their needs and preferences and pursue them in the choice of their objectives.

Such a situation is obviously possible within certain limits – if preferences of the individual are in conflict with the situation of others, they cease to be a matter for the individual and start to be public issues

Raising these comments helps show that hierarchisation of objectives is important to members of the urban community, that is, the stage at which the municipal authorities specify the criteria for choosing the objectives. If the municipal authorities only accept the subjective criterion – reflecting only the preferences and interests of the municipal authorities – there is no place for the idea of the smart city, understood as smart people in the city, smart collaboration in the city, to become a reality. This is because urban communities have no influence on the shape of urban policies. The model of goal-setting constituting an antinomy with respect to the model described above, namely, one in which the municipal authorities are guided in the process of hierarchising objectives by the preferences of selected groups forming the urban community (objective selection criterion) should also be distinguished.

The term smart administration can be viewed in the context of the decision-making processes, which take place in the city's space; it is related to the analysis of relationships that appear between the objectives of the individual groups of the community and the objectives adopted by the municipal authorities as the objectives of the whole of the community. This is about establishing a relationship between the mechanism of setting the objectives for the urban community and the objectives of the individual groups, as well as specifying the conditions that smart administration needs to satisfy under the assumption that the objectives of the group are to be respected by the municipal authorities.

The key concept is that of preferences, because the starting point is the acceptance by the municipal authorities of certain states of affairs as being more valuable (more preferred) than others. These states of affairs (objectives of specific urban groups), which the municipal authorities consider preferential (most preferred choice), are then treated as objectives and they only take steps to achieve them because of these objectives. Smart administration should pursue the logic of preferences, which is made up of three concepts: strong preference, weak preference and indifference. These notions are the basis of formalising terms from everyday language, for example, smart technology in the city is preferred to smart collaboration (strong preference), smart people in the city are just as good as smart collaboration in the city (indifference). This means that if all states of affairs constituting an object of choice are indifferent to the urban authorities, there would be no logical or axiological grounds for making the choice and, hence, taking action at all. Ergo, these states cannot be indifferent to the urban authorities. The municipal authorities make choices and take action on their basis when they prefer certain objectives – they place values on certain states of affairs differently. And it is precisely in the process of valuation that four possible interpretations of smart city are reflected.

A city's ‘smartness’ is indexed by its ability to efficiently and effectively rationalize the planning and management of cities.

Taylor Shelton, Matthew Zook, Alan Wiig ‘The actually existing smart city’ (2015) 8 Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 13–25; Lily Kong, Orlando Woods, ‘The ideological alignment of smart urbanism in Singapore: Critical reflection on a political paradox’ (2018) 4 Urban Studies 679–701

Within the first group of definitions, emphasis is placed on technology, seen as a driving force and a sine qua non for the conversion of the socio-economic system – namely, the city – into the desired state of affairs, that is, the smart city. It is claimed that IT increases the productivity of the municipal infrastructure and its constituent components.

Marcin Baron, ‘Do we need smart cities for resilience?’ (2012) 10 Journal of Economics & Management 32–46; Robert G. Hollands, ‘Will the real smart city please stand up? Intelligent, progressive, or entrepreneurial?’ (2008) 3 City Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 303–320; George Cristian, Mariacristina Roscia, ‘Definition methodology for the smart cities model’ (2012) 1 Energy 326–332; Nils Walravens, ‘Mobile business and the smart city: Developing a business model framework to include public design parameters for mobile city services’ (2012) 3 Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research 121–135

The common element for both the next groups of definitions of a smart city is the assumption that it is the people and not the technology and infrastructure that are the initiators of change.

Publications can be mentioned, in which emphasis is placed on the need to develop and improve qualifications, knowledge and skills of the inhabitants. The objective of the municipal authorities is to bring about a unique transformation of inhabitants into human resources who contribute to the development of the city, attract investment and determine its competitive advantage.

Dennis Linders, ‘From e-government to we-government: Defining a typology for citizen coproduction in the age of social media’ (2012) 4 Government Information Quarterly 446–454; Helmut Willke, Smart governance: Governing the global knowledge society (Campus Verlag 2007)

Another aspect that is emphasised in the literature is the ability to create relations of cooperation between various entities: government institutions and business entities, as well as non-profit organisations of various provenances. The assumption that creativity, inspiration and innovation cannot arise where direct interpersonal contacts are difficult or absent is appropriate for such a view of a smart city. The city's potential can contribute to generating and conducting socioeconomic changes. The intensification of interpersonal relations, the rapid flow of information in the urban environment, cooperation and participation drive economic development, increase innovation and facilitate the effective performance of municipal services. Therefore, the main task of the municipal authorities is the ability to identify who is the key to the achievement of the objectives and initiate and facilitate connections between them. The result of these processes is to be the creation of ‘innovation hubs’.

Karima Kourtit, Peter Nijkamp, Daniel Arribas, ‘Smart cities in perspective – A comparative European study by means of self-organizing maps’ (2012) 2 Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 229–246; Karima Kourtit, Peter Nijkamp, ‘A smart cities in smart space: A regional science perspective’ (2017) 1 Scienze Regionali 105–114; Gabriela Viale Pereira, Maria A. Cunha, Thomas J. Lampoltshammer, Peter Parycek, Mauricio G. Testa, ‘Increasing collaboration and participation in smart city governance: A cross-case analysis of smart city initiatives’ (2017) 3 Information Technology for Development 526–553

The expression of this is the development of administrative phenomena that are not rooted in the Weber tradition: governance and public–private partnership.

Agnieszka Chrisidu-Budnik, Jerzy Korczak, ‘Związek jednostek samorządu terytorialnego jako struktura sieciowa’ [‘Territorial Self-Government Union as a Network Structure’] (2012) 1–2 Samorząd Terytorialny 86–104, Justyna Przedańska, ‘Partnerstwo publiczno-prywatne jako forma współpracy administracji pulicznej z otoczeniem’ [‘Public-private partnership as a form of cooperation between public administration and the environment’] (2017) CXI Przegląd Prawa i Administracji, Jerzy Korczak (ed) Otoczenie administracji publicznej [Public administration environment] 143–158; Wasim Al-Habil, ‘Governance and Government in Public Administration’ (2011) 5 Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research 123–128

The ability of the municipal authorities to create a configuration of these elements – smart technology, smart people and smart collaboration – is emphasised in the last group of definitions.

Robert G. Hollands, ‘Will The Real Smart City Please Stand Up? Intelligent, Progressive, or Entrepreneurial?’ (2008) 3 City Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action 303–320; Albert Meijer, Manuel P.R. Bolivar, ‘Governing the Smart City: A review of the literature on smart urban governance’ (2015) 2 International Review of Administrative Sciences 392–408

The notion and characteristics of the project are a continuous matter of interest of the representatives of theory and practice of dealing with the issue of project management. It is noted that the project is an organisational project within which human, material and financial resources are configured in an innovative way to achieve unique and desirable objectives in qualitative and quantitative terms, within the framework of specific financial and time constraints.

J. Rodney Turner, The handbook of project based management (McGraw-Hill 1993)

Since the 1960s, the issue of projects has given rise to questions about factors affecting both the shape and the possibilities, as well as the methods of managing a project in such a way as to effectively enable the achievement of its intended objectives. The issue of projects is currently increasingly being considered from the point of view of the implementation of the assumptions mentioned in the article, which are appropriate to each of the four interpretations of the notion of the smart city. In this context, the aim is to separate the categories of SCPs from among the whole group of projects and identify the circumstances of their effective implementation.

The literature describes SCPs in two ways: either utilitarily, as a mechanism for effectively implementing the appropriate assumptions, especially for the idea of smart technology in the city,

Guido Perboli, Alberto De Marco, Francesca Perfetti, Matteo Marone, ‘A new taxonomy of smart city project’ (2014) 3 Transportation Research Procedia 470–478

The determinants of the effectiveness of the project vary over time and are of a dynamic and individualised nature because of the uniqueness of each project. Three conditions may be mentioned with regard to SCPs.

First is the equilibrium. This applies to the balance between the planning approach

The planning approach is based on sequencing methods, namely, a linear, consequential, staged structure of project implementation. The most prevalent methodologies in this group are the PRINCE2^® and the PMBoK^® methodologies

Second is the oscillation. SCPs feature a certain degree of ambiguity; in particular, the study project plan can demonstrate only estimated data on costs, deadlines and quality. The project plan is concretised at the stage of identifying the detailed functions and objectives to be achieved within the framework of this organisational project. Even so, an inherent property of SCPs, which is also their weakness, is a certain degree of risk that, in practice, the project plan may not provide the desired results or generate the expected changes.

Risk is defined as an uncertain event that may have a positive or a negative impact on the project objectives. A Guide to the Project Management body of Knowledge (PMBOK^® Guide) – Fifth Edition, Project Management Institute (Newton Square 2013) 309. It should be highlighted that it is strongly emphasised in the theoretical and practical layer of project management that risk should be perceived not only in the traditional way – as a potential threat to the achievement of the project's objectives – but also as an opportunity. In such a perspective, risk is perceived as a situation in which there is a probability of achieving results that are better or worse than expected under the assumption that the distribution of the probability of deviation of these results from their expected value is also known. William H. Marsh, Basic Financial Management (South-Western College Publishing 1995) 235

Third is the skilful integration of resources and coordination of activities.

The literature on the subject frequently introduces the term governance, referring to the integration of resources and the coordination of activities. Project governance includes (a) the establishment of the relationship between the participants involved, (b) the determination of the flow of information between the project stakeholders, (c) the designation of the project structure, (d) consolidation of resources and (e) the creation of mechanisms for monitoring results at each stage of implementation. See Bruce T. Barkley, Government program management (McGraw-Hill 2011) 45 et seq; Lynn H. Crawford, Jane Helm, ‘Government and governance: The value of project management in the public sector’ (2009) 1 Project Management Journal 73 et seq

The first variant constitutes intraorganisational projects, embedded in the organisational structure of the self-government administration.

There are many forms of intraorganisational projects; their common elements are (1) the organisational assignment of employees to a project group, (2) the determination of the scope of competence and the resulting decision-making powers of the project manager and the line managers, (2) the organisational inclusion (empowerment) of the project group in the office's existing line structure and (3) a lack of substitutability – the project group does not displace existing line structure but purely supports it for the duration of the project. The oldest form of intraorganisational projects used by public administrations is the matrix structure, which creates the possibility of stably affecting and dividing competencies between the project manager and the line manager. See Agnieszka Chrisidu-Budnik, Jerzy Korczak, Andrzej Pakuła, Jerzy Supernat, Nauka organizacji i zarzadzania [The science of organization and management] (Kolonia Limited 2005)

The second variant is that of intraorganisational projects, which should be seen as mechanisms of participation of various groups in the performance of public tasks. Intraorganisational projects are often activated in order to conduct investments in the area of technical and social infrastructure; the projects feature: –

a scope exceeding the capabilities of an individual partner (lack of know-how, financial resources, technology),

The essence of the integration in interorganisational projects lies in the objective plane both in terms of the methods of their definition and the expected ways of achieving them. The effectiveness of the implementation of an interorganisational project is a function of the skilful reconciliation of the logic of functioning, which is appropriate to each of the sectors and the assurance of intensive coordination of tangible and intangible flows of resources between them.

Up to 200 years ago, location was the main factor determining whether a city would develop harmoniously. Urban centres were built, for example, at the confluence of rivers or on the shores of bays, namely, in places enabling the use of maritime routes for trading purposes. At present, the greatest assets of cities are education, high-quality urban infrastructure, the transformation of existing cities into those that are more environmentally friendly, diversity and tolerance, namely, values as a result of which investors, specialists and technologically innovative industries come to cities. Creativity and inspiration cannot arise where direct contacts between people are difficult. If municipal authorities take into account the socio-urban potential, this can contribute to the faster implementation of changes in urban space. These changes usually require the use of advanced technologies. SCPs are launched to implement assumptions that are appropriate for smart cities; in particular, the use of ‘bottom-up’ incremental projects creates an opportunity to rethink the concept of future cities – methods of their design, construction and functioning. By opening up the opportunity of a smart life to the urban community, the municipal authorities ensure that the community formed by them – which is the actual embodiment of the city – will also be smart.