Development principles for instituties in smart cities

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop the basic principles of institutional support in smart cities in a digital society. The relevance of the work is determined by the increasing attention to the problems of the coherent development in the modern cities which are extensively experiencing exacerbating socio-economic and environmental concerns. This brings the need for new concepts in the development of modern cities to the top of the agenda. The concept of a smart city is a promising concept of such a development. The most important factors in putting the concept of smart cities into practice are shown to be the institutional support, documenting the “rules of the game” for the economic agents, account for the impact of innovations in the digital sphere, including the Internet of things, big data, and digital platforms. The main functions of the institutions in a smart city are identified, including making communities aware of something, coordinating the communities, protecting, motivating them, and imposing restrictions. The study examined the main approaches to the digitalization of the urban environment as regards the concept of smart cities, identified the main models for applying the top-down and bottom-up approaches. An important advantage of the top-down model is the strategic planning for the smart city development, as well as the ability to mobilize significant resources for the projects to digitalize the urban environment. This model is limited in its insufficient attention to the citizens’ wishes to the smart city projects. The bottom-up model, on the contrary, is initiated by the citizens themselves, that is, they take into account their opinion to a greater extent, but are not always provided with significant resources. The study notes the importance of some institutional support functions that manifest themselves in a digital economy. For example, issues related to the personal data protection, privacy of digital users, issues of trust in the digital space are typical only for the digital society. As a result of the study, the authors propose to generalize the principles of the development for smart cities. These principles can improve the efficiency of the digitalization projects in various areas of urban space. The subject of the research is the economic relations that are developed when the initiatives which digitalize the urban environment and the projects in the field of smart city development are implemented. Theoretically, the study is based on smart city development and urban environment digitalization in various areas of economic activity. Generally accepted methods of economic research of system logical analysis were used. The research is seen to be novel as it is possible to identify particular principles of the institutional support in smart cities, including a principle of stakeholder involvement, a principle of diversity among the participants, a principle of effectiveness, a no-conflict-of-interest principle, a principle of network organization, a principle of manageability. The theoretical significance of the study lies in the development of institutional economic theory in the digitalization of socio-economic systems, including cities. The practical significance of the study is to lay the foundation for future research in the development of the digital economy, digitalization of the urban environment and the implementation of projects in the field of smart cities.

Keywords

smart city, institutional support, digital economy, model, digital technologies, urbanization, territorial development, innovation, strategy, quality of life, digital society

For citation

Popov E.V., Semyachkov K.A. Development principles for instituties in smart cities. Perm University Herald. Economy, 2020, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 198–217. DOI 10.17072/1994-9960-2020-2-198-217

Acknowledgements

The research is financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research as a part of a scientific project no. 20-010-00333.

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