The role of locality and place-specific development paths in creating smart cities: The example of middle-sized Hungarian cities

Smart cities have spawned a global discourse, which is, however, dominated by notions and theories originating from major metropolis regions in the Global North/West, as well as by quantitative approaches. Drawing on case studies from Hungary, this paper aims to reveal how place-specific factors influence smart-city development and to discover the characteristics of this development in the Hungarian context. For this purpose, qualitative research methods, namely a content analysis of policy documents and semi-structured expert interviews, were used. Based on the results, we distinguished four development paths: representative, stalled, organizational model, and focused smart city. Findings broaden the general understanding of smart-city development, providing policy recommendations for the future adaptation of the concept.