Does smart city policy lead to sustainability of cities?

•Investigates smart cities’ contributions in achieving sustainable urban outcomes.•Places 15 smart cities from the UK under the sustainability microscope.•Reveals the link between city smartness and CO2 emissions that is not linear.•Finds that the impact of city smartness on CO2 emissions does not c...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Land use policy 2018-04, Vol.73, p.49-58
Main Authors: Yigitcanlar, Tan, Kamruzzaman, Md
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
21st century
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide emissions
Data analysis
Data processing
Emissions
Land use
Panel data
Panel data model
Smart cities
Smart city
Smart grid technology
Sustainability
Sustainable city
Sustainable development
Sustainable urban development
United Kingdom
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Investigates smart cities’ contributions in achieving sustainable urban outcomes.•Places 15 smart cities from the UK under the sustainability microscope.•Reveals the link between city smartness and CO2 emissions that is not linear.•Finds that the impact of city smartness on CO2 emissions does not change over time.•Suggests better aligning smart city strategies to lead to concrete sustainable outcomes. The popular smart city concept, for some, is viewed as a vision, manifesto or promise aiming to constitute the 21st century’s sustainable and ideal city form, while for others it is just a hype. This paper places smart city practices from the UK under the microscope to investigate their contributions in achieving sustainable urban outcomes. Panel data analysis methods were employed to investigate changes in carbon dioxide emissions level of 15 UK cities with differential level of city smartness over the period of 2005–2013. The findings reveal that the link between city smartness and carbon dioxide emissions is not linear, and the impact of city smartness on carbon dioxide emissions does not change over time. This finding calls for better aligning smart city strategies to lead to concrete sustainable outcomes. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of prospective investigations to accurately scrutinise existing smart city projects’ outcomes, and emphasising the necessity of developing smart city agendas that deliver sustainable outcomes.
ISSN:0264-8377
1873-5754
DOI:10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.01.034