Smart Cities/Regions 2015; Oxford University Press 2018). Key topics in Smart
Cities include, inter alia, Smart Energy and Environment, Smart Living, and Smart
Mobility (Projektgruppe Smart Cities/Regions 2015).
Driving forces for Smart Cities include Big Business, above all, AXA, Cisco,
Deloitte, Ericsson, HSBC, Huawei, IBM, Microsoft, Philips, Siemens, Tesla, the
Global Environment Facility (GEF), and Uber as well as international entities like
the European Commission and the UN. The different stakeholders pursue different
objectives: While private companies, banks, and private investors benefit economically from Smart Cities, mayors might benefit reputation-wise from Smart Cities,
whereas international entities can push their ideologies via Smart Cities.
13.3.3 Planning and Conceptualization of Smart Cities
A carefully designed roadmap can facilitate the successful realization of Smart City
projects. The roadmap within the scope of the European Platform for Intelligent
Cities (EPIC) project is an illustrative example. The EPIC roadmap includes six
phases (vision phase, plan phase, design phase, build phase, deliver phase, and
operate phase), resulting in the definition of concrete business cases (Dirkx et al.
2013).
Interestingly, none of these six phases in the EPIC roadmap – basically authored
and reviewed by Big Business players like the London-based consulting firm
Deloitte and the global IT and consulting firm IBM – mentions the involvement of
citizens, although the EPIC project is purportedly equally beneficial for city administrations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and citizens. Nevertheless, a truly
smart city can only be built if well-informed citizens are involved at all stages of
conception and planning. This involvement shall be based on objective information
from the very beginning of each project, reflecting citizens’ genuine views and ideas
instead of indoctrination and deception by deliberate misinformation and manipulation via the Delphi Technique (Koire 2011). Thus, international platforms like EPIC,
the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) platform (United
Smart Cities 2018), or global networks like ICLEI, the International Council for
Local Environmental Initiatives (Koire 2011; ICLEI 2018), should be used as
helpful tools for networking, inspiration, and advisory support rather than as the
final word for Smart City roadmaps and the implementation of Smart Cities.
13.3.4 Implementation of Smart City Projects
Local people and institutions should be treated as privileged stakeholders by being
actively involved into Smart City projects from the very beginning. The step from
conception to concrete planning is carried out in spatially limited laboratories (labs)
for field experiments as they are already used by several cities, e.g., in Barcelona and
Singapore (Libbe 2014).
13 The Role of Smart Cities for the Realization of. . .
215
Cities include, inter alia, Smart Energy and Environment, Smart Living, and Smart
Mobility (Projektgruppe Smart Cities/Regions 2015).
Driving forces for Smart Cities include Big Business, above all, AXA, Cisco,
Deloitte, Ericsson, HSBC, Huawei, IBM, Microsoft, Philips, Siemens, Tesla, the
Global Environment Facility (GEF), and Uber as well as international entities like
the European Commission and the UN. The different stakeholders pursue different
objectives: While private companies, banks, and private investors benefit economically from Smart Cities, mayors might benefit reputation-wise from Smart Cities,
whereas international entities can push their ideologies via Smart Cities.
13.3.3 Planning and Conceptualization of Smart Cities
A carefully designed roadmap can facilitate the successful realization of Smart City
projects. The roadmap within the scope of the European Platform for Intelligent
Cities (EPIC) project is an illustrative example. The EPIC roadmap includes six
phases (vision phase, plan phase, design phase, build phase, deliver phase, and
operate phase), resulting in the definition of concrete business cases (Dirkx et al.
2013).
Interestingly, none of these six phases in the EPIC roadmap – basically authored
and reviewed by Big Business players like the London-based consulting firm
Deloitte and the global IT and consulting firm IBM – mentions the involvement of
citizens, although the EPIC project is purportedly equally beneficial for city administrations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and citizens. Nevertheless, a truly
smart city can only be built if well-informed citizens are involved at all stages of
conception and planning. This involvement shall be based on objective information
from the very beginning of each project, reflecting citizens’ genuine views and ideas
instead of indoctrination and deception by deliberate misinformation and manipulation via the Delphi Technique (Koire 2011). Thus, international platforms like EPIC,
the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) platform (United
Smart Cities 2018), or global networks like ICLEI, the International Council for
Local Environmental Initiatives (Koire 2011; ICLEI 2018), should be used as
helpful tools for networking, inspiration, and advisory support rather than as the
final word for Smart City roadmaps and the implementation of Smart Cities.
13.3.4 Implementation of Smart City Projects
Local people and institutions should be treated as privileged stakeholders by being
actively involved into Smart City projects from the very beginning. The step from
conception to concrete planning is carried out in spatially limited laboratories (labs)
for field experiments as they are already used by several cities, e.g., in Barcelona and
Singapore (Libbe 2014).
13 The Role of Smart Cities for the Realization of. . .
215