The Scandinavian Third Way as a Proposal for Sustainable Smart City Development—A Case Study of Aarhus City

Abstract

The practical implementation of the goals of smart sustainable cities has different forms. This paper explores an example of the Danish smart city Aarhus, through which the so-called ‘Scandinavian third way’ of smart city development is being proposed. The foundations of the ‘third way’ are directly derived from the Scandinavian tradition of cooperation; it is supposed to be an alternative to the more commercial American model and the more centrally-controlled Asian tradition. The paper aims to identify how the Scandinavian collaborative model has influenced the process of developing the smart city Aarhus, to analyse the proposed ‘Scandinavian third way’ of smart city development, and finally to assess its applicability in other urban centres. To achieve these goals, the method of literature analysis and a case study along with qualitative analysis of existing data and individual in-depth interviews with decision makers and observers of political life were applied. As the results show, the Scandinavian tradition of governance and political decision-making present in Denmark is not without significance for the functioning form of the smart city of Aarhus. Its foundations have been adopted by the Aarhus municipality in the implementation of its smart city activities, creating a unique modern city management model.