Understanding Smart City Practice in Urban China: A Governance Perspective

Abstract

Through an evolution from an emerging marketing narrative to a geographical fact around the globe, smart city is increasingly understood as a city’s effort to make itself smart. There seems no single city in the world to be commonly recognized as a real smart city yet, albeit many cities have already tried hard in this missionary commitment. Yet some common features can still be seen and identified, particularly from the urban governance perspective. This article explores the practice of smart city construction in China through a lens of governance by observing the interactive involvement of key stakeholders in the process. By taking three cities (Hangzhou, Wuhan, and Shanghai) in China as study cases, a conceptual framework is established in which three sets of actors, i.e., ICT-related enterprises, government, and civil society, and, accordingly, three types of approaches, i.e., ICT-led, planning-led, and place-making-and-community-oriented, are identified. It is found that the evolution of smart city construction rather follows a nonlinear trajectory and is very dependent on whether or not the primary actors and related stakeholders can form an affirmative acting power in triggering the city’s implementation. In other words, there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to smart city construction. Each city may have its specialization in smartness based on awareness of and respecting its unique existing setting. The empirical study also shows that smart city construction tends to be converged in recognition that the core of smart city is not the smartness of technology but the smartness of all institutions and people enabled to utilize smart tools properly and efficiently in pursuit of people’s well-being, institutional capacity building, and better spatial arrangement towards a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive city in and for the future. From a geographical perspective, that is how to build a smart urban space to make the city a better place to not just accommodate but facilitate and meet people’s increasing demand for a better life in their living places.