Why do smart city projects fail to create impact? Understanding decision-making in smart city policy implementation

Abstract

Smart city projects have been rolled out in various parts of the world, often promising radical urban transformations driven by cutting edge technologies. However, several studies on smart city implementation have noted how these iconic and technology intensive projects have often failed to create the impact they promise. Extending upon emerging scholarship on decision-making in smart city implementation, I use the framework of the garbage can model of organizational choice to unpack key decisions taken around smart city implementation in the city of Kochi in India and the tensions surrounding its flagship integrated command and control centre (ICCC). The case study reveals that the smart city arrives as a top-down directive from the central government where the existing problems of the city are reconfigured to fit nationally envisioned smart city agendas. The implementation of smart city projects is bound up with political tensions between existing local and state organisations and often disrupted by election-cycles and the shuffling of government bureaucrats at the helm of the smart city organisation. The ICCC arrives in Kochi as a solution-looking-for-a-problem as a mandate from the central government. Over time, the increasing distance between the smart city projects and the existing local authorities results in limited integration of the ICCC with urban governance in Kochi. The study shows how smart city projects are embroiled in organizational path dependency and political controversies contrary to the apolitical and rational technical fixes promised in smart city vision documents.