Smart Sustainable City Roadmap as a Tool for Addressing Sustainability Challenges and Building Governance Capacity

Gabriela Viale Pereira and Luiza Schuch de Azambuja
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Gabriela Viale Pereira: Department for E-Governance and Administration, Danube University Krems, 3500 Krems an der Donau, Austria
Luiza Schuch de Azambuja: Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-22

Abstract: Building smart sustainable cities initiatives requires governance capacity, which is constantly challenged by a diversity of actors and the transformation towards a digital society; however, the process of identifying the conditions for building a smart sustainable city (SSC) is not straightforward. As an attempt to map the key governance conditions, the goal of this study is to suggest guidelines for the development of SSC initiatives in the format of a generic roadmap. This research applies design science research methodology and builds the roadmap based on identified antecedents that may hinder or facilitate the development of SSC initiatives from a systematic literature review and the analysis of key governance aspects from 12 smart city initiatives in Europe and Latin America. This paper builds its results through a four-step approach including: (1) defining the main concepts and dimensions within the smart sustainable city context; (2) identifying sustainability challenges for the development of smart sustainable city initiatives; (3) analysing key governance aspects from smart sustainable city initiatives; and (4) designing an actionable research-based roadmap and practical recommendations. The resulting roadmap contains 11 key governance conditions for developing strategies for smart sustainable city initiatives that were classified into three main phases: (1) planning; (2) implementing; and (3) adopting, monitoring, and evaluating. In terms of contribution, this research provides a tool to support the development of initiatives, addressing sustainability challenges and strengthening governance capacity to ensure the long-term impacts of smart sustainable cities.

Keywords: smart sustainable city; governance; sustainability challenges; governance capacity; roadmap; design science research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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