Smart Cities: Practitioners’ Understanding and Expectations: Results from a Qualitative Study in the City of Koblenz

Abstract

Over the last decade, Smart City has become a growing trend in urban development. Cities around the world have developed a Smart City concept and initiated a longer-term transformation in different areas, covered by the Smart City concept. Cities are expecting, among others, that the many potential benefits and improvements through Smart City implementations can reduce urban challenges. Despite this great interest on the part of practitioners and some standardization efforts, different definitions of the term exist in the literature and in practice. Depending on the context, different aspects are focused on, which shape an idiosyncratic understanding of dimensions of Smart City. Beyond that, the understanding of the term in theory and in practice may vary substantially. As a result, there is an inevitable high degree of complexity in the understanding of the term and, consequently, uncertainty among the practitioners. Thus, this study explores practitioners' understanding of Smart City through expert interviews in the city of Koblenz, Germany. The paper provides a first insight into the heterogeneity of the understanding of the term in the context of application and compares it to the basic definitions and conceptual approaches associated with Smart City developments in the academic literature.