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A focus on innovation: Cities and local political leadership

Political Strategies for Local Governance in Times of Crisis

Olga Gil. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid* 1

@OlgaG olgagil@olgagil.es

ABSTRACT

In this work we have applied data to a theoretical model to illuminate the multi-faceted strategies

developed by city leaders dealing with XXI century challenges. This work departs from previous

research in cities, where (Gil, Navarro and Navío 2015) attempted to gauge differences and

similarities in an eight city sample. The focus of the work are cases from China –Shanghai-,

Japan, Malaysia –Iskandar-, the United States –New York- and Europe –Amsterdam. Responses

of locally elected political leaders to the pressures for changes in public provision - reductions in

the case of western economies are addresses. In so doing it is useful to unveil the strategies

developed by local leaders and the complex situation of governance networks (Stoker 2011). In

such networks, politicians exert influence, rather than power, over a range of external network

organizations and partners. The policy dimension of the work emphasizes policies developed to

steer cities and communities. The political dimension address the formulation of governance

networks; the constitutional dimension shows differences among national constitutional status

and powers of local governments. Finally, conclusions allow to learn, disseminate learning from

a wide variety of settings and experiences worldwide.

Keywords

cities, citizens, networks, markets, public policy, governance, innovation, China, Shanghai, Malaysia,

Iskandar, Japan, United States, New York, Europe, EU, Amsterdam, infrastructure, Internet of Things,

Internet with Things, smart grid, utilities, energy

Policy implications

How city leaders govern and engage in governance networks shape policies to pursue

economic growth and sustainability

Strategies to solve complex issues related to the glocal dimension –global.local- are

targeted to enhance governing capacity in a variety of ways

There are actual strategies that leaders develop to enhance influence in governance

networks

*This work has been undertaken as collaborator of network H2020 “Emerging technologies in the public

sector: Innovative and inclusive public servicies” directed by Daniel Diaz-Fuentes at Universidad of

Cantabria, Department of Economics. Funds for this Project have been provided by Ministerio de Economía

y Competitividad, Programa estatal de I+D+I orientado a los retos de la sociedad 2013, para preparar una

propuesta H2020 de la Unión Europea.

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“Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work

prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides,

according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.”

“Such are the differences among human beings in their sources of pleasure, their

susceptibilities of pain, and the operation on them of different physical and moral agencies,

that unless there is a corresponding diversity in their modes of life, they neither obtain

their fair share of happiness, nor grow up to the mental, moral, and aesthetic stature of

which their nature is capable.” John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

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Introduction

The global context for cities has marked a turning point in 2009, when we find an equal number

of population accommodated in cities and villages. Global cities, furthermore, “continue to be key

players in the global economy (Bada et al. 2015).” Urbanization is one of the biggest challenges

for public policy and innovations in governance, having a global impact, from a local level

perspective in the XXI century. Urbanization is happening while the economic centre of gravity

shifts globally: 1.5 times the radius of the planet from 1980 to 2050, moving the center of economic

gravity from the mid-Atlantic to India and China (Quah, 2011). The United Nations World

Urbanization Report estimates that over 70% of the world population will be living in cities by

2050. Moved by these concerns this work focuses on understanding local governance responses

in comparative perspective.

This work proceeds as follows: In the first part two main theoretical traditions are explained. The

focus is on the smart city concept. The hypothesis and the theoretical model applied are later

advanced. An analysis of the six cases follows –a work that is done for eight cases, covering

Málaga, Santander and Tarragona in Spain, but questions of time limit the coverage here. For the

purposes of this work, and space limit, the focus is on one variable to test for convergence or

divergence: governance.

Finally, conclusions and findings are presented, as well as questions and suggestions for further

research.

Definitions of smart cities under two traditions: human capital and technology

This first section is based on the work by Gil, Navarro and Navío (2015). The purpose of this first section is to show and review the two main theoretical traditions addressing the smart city concept: The first approach focuses on human capital, and the second approach focuses on technological progress. The choice of one tradition to analyze the cases is also explained. There is a stream of theory drawing on human capital as a main component of the smart cities definition, starting with Shapiro (2006) and further enriched by the following authors. First, Shapiro (2006) draws the link among quality of life, productivity and the growth effects of human capital in cities. Winters (2011) considers a smart city as a metropolitan area with a large share of the adult population with a college degree, often small and mid-sized metropolitan spaces containing flagship state universities. In the European tradition we find a refinement, with the idea of inclusiveness and regeneration linked to the smart city concept (Deakin and Allwinkle, 2007). For Hollands´ work (2008), undergird the social capital is critical to embed the required informational and communicative qualities of smart cities. Hollands definition is linked to an academic tradition that purposely avoids defining intelligence limited to the world of devices and the Internet of things. Such definition would constraint the smart concept to the artificial intelligence available (Komninos 2009), and would neglect two other forms of intelligence: human and collective, from the –collective- skills of population to the social institutions articulating cooperation. Allwinkle and Cruickshank (2011) highlight from Hollands’ definitions the emphasis

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on people and their interactions. Deakin and Al Waer (2011), Caragliu, Chiara Del Bo, and Nijkamp (2009, 2011) Komninos (2009) and Florida (2002, 2005) are also within this academic tradition drawing on human capital as a main component of the smart cities. Shen et al. (2011) also include urban sustainability indicators, taking into account environmental, economic, social and governance aspects. The wealth of these approaches has been shown in the study of cities in more developed countries. However, from our perspective it is interesting as well to understand the nuances of cities where the developmental role of the government is substantial, as it is for the cities of Shanghai (Liu, 2012, p. 1128) and Iskandar. Thus, for the purpose of this work, we draw on the literature from various disciplinary areas, from e-government, to information science, urban studies and public administration. Here we find scholars working from different geographic backgrounds and bringing different mindsets in the research advanced by Nam and Pardo (2011) and Chourabi et al. (2012). This academic tradition focuses on technological progress. However, it also brings tools to evaluate critically the impact of this progress from a comparative perspective. Chourabi et al. identify eight critical factors in smart city initiatives that we find interesting to analyze and understand smart cities: management and organization, technology, governance -as a different variable in Chourabi´s approach- policy context, people and communities, economy, built infrastructure, and natural environment. Beside the capacity as evaluation tools, we find Chourabi et al. (2012) factors a very useful framework to examine how a local government envisions and pursues smart city initiatives, and more generally innovations in governance and public policies. For the purpose of this work and for space reasons we will center just in two variables: governance and people and communities. Factors included by Chourabi et al. (2012, p. 2292) in the governance category include collaboration, leadership and champion, participation and partnership, communication, data exchange, service and application integration, accountability and transparency. We refine this variable including a measure of the existence and extent of democracy, as suggested by Morlino (2014).

The relevance of this study from the perspective of local studies is paramount. Local

governments, even with all the differences “spend huge amounts of money and are mayor

sources of direct and indirect employment. Local authorities represent proximity to citizens (…) if

that is true in the traditional consolidated democracies, it is event more relevant in those countries,

former communist countries [in Europe] (Alba 2002:1) that from 1989 have been involved in

developing democratic and economic viable societies.

A need to rethink totally the way we study both austerity and leadership

There is a stream of literature of interest that we have nor covered yet at this stage, as covered

in Yochai Benkler work where he states that:

“Complex modern societies have developed in the context of mass media and industrial

information economy. Our theories of growth and innovation assume that industrial models

of innovation are dominant. Our theories about how effective communications in complex

societies are achieved center on market-based, proprietary models, with a professional

commercial core and a dispersed, relatively passive periphery. Our conceptions of human

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agency, collective deliberation, and common culture in these societies are embedded in

the experience and practice of capital-intensive information and cultural production

practices that emphasize proprietary, market-based models and starkly separate

production from consumption. Our institutional frameworks reflect these conceptual

models of information production and exchange, and have come, over the past few years,

to enforce these conceptions as practiced reality, even when they need not be.”

Benkler (2016: 461) notes that:

1) The baseline conception that proprietary strategies are dominant in our information

production system is overstated

2) The education system, from kindergarten to doctoral programs, is thoroughly infused with

nonproprietary motivations, social relations, and organizational forms.

3) The arts and sciences are replete with voluntarism and actions oriented primarily toward

social-psychological motivations rather than market appropriation.

4) Political and theological discourses are thoroughly based in nonmarket forms and

motivations.

5) Even industrial research and development, while market oriented, is in most industries not

based on proprietary claims of exclusion, but on improved efficiencies and customer

relations that can be captured and that drive innovation, without need for proprietary

strategies of appropriation.

Benkler disputes that property and markets are the roots of all growth and productivity. In so doing

he proposes to rethink the institutional ecology of innovation and information production:

“the basic technologies of information processing, storage, and communication have

made nonproprietary models more attractive and effective than was ever before possible.

Ubiquitous low-cost processors, storage media, and networked connectivity have made it

practically feasible for individuals, alone and in cooperation with others, to create and

exchange information, knowledge, and culture in patterns of social reciprocity,

redistribution, and sharing, rather than proprietary, market-based production. The basic

material capital requirements of information production are now in the hands of a billion

people around the globe who are connected to each other more or less seamlessly. These

material conditions have given individuals a new practical freedom of action.”

The consequences of taking into account Benkler work on networks means a need to

rethink totally the way we study both austerity and leadership. This comes as proof of

Alba´s insight (2002) defending that the flexibility, cooperation, innovation and

development of different capabilities are at the core of better production both in politics

and economics. Alba also notes that from 2002, what is new is “the renovated emphasis

on democratic and participatory values (2002).”

Hypothesis

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For the time being, however, we have worked with the hypothesis that the factors to advance

the smart plans are key to differentiate models of smart cities, and we have apply the

comparison to six world cases in order to control for possible induced similarities. Our

choice of cases is driven by an interest to learn from innovation practices in different world

institutional settings. Innovation in Asia has been growing at very high rates: from 2000 to 2005

the growth rate in research and development in China rose by 17% while figures for north America

where 5,2 % and Europe 3,8% (Komninos 2009). The work thus draws differences and similarities

in OCDE and non OCDE countries. We explore cases in China (Shanghai), Japan, Malaysia

(Iskandar), United States (New York) and the European Union (Amsterdam, Málaga, Santander

and Tarragona –these last three in Spain). We are interested in variations in the universe of cases.

In previous works we looked at management and organization, technology, governance, policy

context, people and communities, economy, built infrastructure, and natural environment,

following Chourabi et al. model (2012) in Figure 1. In these previous works (Gil and Navarro 2013)

we conclude that governance could be a key variable to account for patterns of global

convergence or divergence.

Figure 1.

For the time being, however, the following sections focus on the six cases analyzed. In all these

geographical contexts a variety of initiatives and efforts have been made to make cities smart.

Cities diverge widely in terms of conditions such as demographics, economy, location, population

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growth and levels of urban development. The differences are reflected on urban annual growth

rates, as shown in Table 1, and in the initiatives taken.

Table 1. Urban annual growth rate (%). 2000-2015.

Year China Japan Malaysia United States

2000-2005 4.16 0.34 3,67 1.43

2005-2010 2.62 0.19 3.01 1.33

2010-2015 2.29 0.15 2.44 1.23

2015-2020 1.97 0.07 1.98 1.10

2020-2025 1.58 0.01 1.58 0.97

2025-2030 1.23 -0.04 1.29 0.85

2030-2035 0.96 -0.12 1.14 0.75

2035-2040 0.77 -0.22 0.99 0.66

2040-2045 0.59 -0.31 0.85 0.59

2045-2050 0.40 -0.38 0.70 0.5

Urban annual growth rate (%). 2000-2015. Source: United Nations Statistics. Data from 2010 onwards are projections.

The case of Shanghai in China

We have covered the theoretical traditions addressing the smart city concept, advanced our

hypothesis and the theoretical model that underlies the analysis of the cases. We now turn to the

analysis of Shanghai. This analysis is built up on the factors suggested by Chouraby et al (2012),

narrowing the focus in two subcategories: governance and people and communities. In the

definition of governance we include the normative question of democracy --with cases being down

rated for the lack thereof, as suggested by Morlino (2014). For the case of Shanghai we are

drawing heavily on the work by Gil and Zheng (2015).

Governance of the smart city in Shanghai, a down rated variable on democratic grounds

The governance in Shanghai rest heavily on an investment led model, as it is in the rest of China

(Lin, 2002). In China we find by 2011 fifty-one urban areas with plans and specific goals

addressing smart cities (Liu and Peng, 2013). The roots are on the 12th Master Plan and a

government budget that allocates substantial resources to the Internet of Things and cloud

computing. The White Paper on Internet of Things published by the Academy of

Telecommunications Research of the Ministry of Industry in China marks at 500 billion yuan the

investment for its 12th Five Year Plan. This investment led model developed under fierce

competition, however. In 2012 half of the 47 sub provinces with central government city status

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had developed smart city plans.

This is the context in which Shanghai issues the “Smart Shanghai 2011-2013 construction Plan”

–a city with 24 million inhabitants, and second in the ranking of Chinese cities for global

connectivity, after Hong Kong (Taylor et al., 2013, p. 872).

The focus of Shanghai smart plan has to do with three axes: International trade and becoming a

global financial and economic center by 2020. These axes have been targeted from 1992 under

different action plans, before the label smart is raised. Remarkably, local leaders have rendered

some of the former plans obsolete because they were able to succeed expectations on planning

and execution.

The idea behind the plan is to attain an “innovation driven transformation,” under the guiding

principle of socialism with Chinese characteristics proposed by Deng Xiaoping Theory. In practice,

the plan builds up on measures taken from the decade of 1990, when informatization was the

basis of modernization in three consecutive five year plan periods. Thus, the three-year plan is

limited to explain the whole process developing in over a decade, based on the vision of President

Jiang Ze Min in 1992 to make of Shanghai an international financial, economic and trade center

as soon as possible.

These are tools to make the vision possible in the Smart Shanghai Construction Plan:

“Improving the Internet broadband and intelligent application level, build an information

infrastructure system of international level, a convenient and highly effective information sensing

and intelligent application system, an innovative new generation of IT industry system and a

credible and reliable regional information security protection system. [Giving] full play to market

mechanism and enterprises, attach importance to government guidance, improve market

supervision, vigorously promote the building of future-oriented Smart City carrying mainly digital,

network and intelligent features … to raise the city’s all-round modernization level and let the

citizens share the benefits offered by [a] Smart City.” [Shanghai Smart City Plan.

http://www.shanghai.gov.cn/shanghai/node27118/node27973/u22ai70898.html]

Based on Lin work (2007, p. 1847) we also find that Shanghai is among those large and super

large cities which tend to expand and upgrade the urban built environment in China from the

1980s, “so that they could distinguish themselves from the numerous small cities (…)

experiencing rapid industrialization and urbanization.” In 2013 the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade

Zone was created, with the purpose of allowing foreign and national industries to prosper in a law-

oriented market environment and to attract foreign investment [http://en.shftz.gov.cn]. Shanghai

People’s Congress, the city’s legislative body, has voted the legal ground for the Pilot Free Trade

Zone unanimously in a new law and it is enacted from August 1, 2014. The zone builds up in

previous initiatives set in place since 1984, such as the free trade zone of Pudong (Yusuf and

Wu, 2002, p. 1227).

The governance of smart city plans in China includes the participation of local governments and

universities, both lead by officials from the communist party in the actors´ realm. The cooperation

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is open to local governments, universities and foreign firms. Japanese firms as well as IBM, for

instance, have developed strong win-win alliances with local governments. The party elected

officials have a stronghold executive power. Thus, we find higher level governments that

decentralize tasks to local authorities. This shows a shift in traditional patterns of allocation of

functions and responsibilities in the local domain in China. This shift is consistent with the

institutional reforms undergone in the 1980s, as noticed by professor Jean C. Oi from Fudan

University, who theorizes about local state corporatism in the country. These reforms continue in

the 1990s, giving greater managerial autonomy to public utility agencies, as Yusuf and Wu

document: “municipal service departments have been given full responsibility for planning,

investment, operations and maintenance. These departments are also adopting an independent

cost-accounting system to facilitate sector management and financing (Yusuf and Wu, 2002, p.

1230).”

Urban regions adopt new modes of governance: Local governments lead smart cities projects.

Local governments are also the nodes for foreign firms interested in local collaboration.

Shanghai Municipal Government, acting through YIDIAN -a large state owned company directly

under the umbrella of the municipal government- brands itself as the “only information company

under the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.” This

group of companies -YIDIAN- has 120 or more firms under its umbrella, including 22 consolidated

companies -of which, 5 are publicly traded-. Its total assets surpassing 29.1 billion RMB, net

assets 11.0 billion RMB, and net sales over 40.267 billion RMB in 2011.

Banks are also important actors in the smart landscape, as 440 billion yuan are likely to be granted

to smart city projects across the country. A commercial bank, China Development Bank

announced in January 2013 over 80 billion yuan in credit for building smart cities over the 2103-

2016 period, an announcement followed by other commercial banks.

Governance in Shanghai in the institutional realm is based on the strengthening of organization

and leadership. There is a municipal leading group responsible for building the Smart City, and

unified deployment of the work on smart city construction. This group has under her supervision

an office responsible for daily coordination of the work related to the smart city overarching project.

Shanghai also set up a Smart City Expert Committee and an expert policy advisory mechanism.

Together with organizations considered relevant they also set up a Smart City Promotion Center.

The relevant commissions, offices and bureaus are responsible for detailed implementation of the

tasks in different areas, in accordance with their responsibilities. Districts and county within the

city also set up mechanisms to propel Smart City building in their respective areas within the city.

The original three-year-plan contemplates conducting statistics evaluation: Establishing a

complete statistical system and social evaluation system to build up the smart city, to strengthen

the capacities of professional institutions by regularly conducting tracking and analysis and

releasing the evaluation results. It contemplates establishing a follow-up and assessment

mechanisms for the coordination and implementation of the three-year Action Plan, incorporating

it into the annual performance appraisal system of the relevant departments and districts and

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counties.

Attempts have been made at coordination of innovation of firms universities, research institutions

and users in the new generation of IT industry, including cloud computing and the Internet of

things. The smart city plan mentions on this realm the need for a sound environment, from

professional forums and conferences to exhibitions.

Governance in Shanghai crystalizes with a particular pattern, in which management and

organization, technology, economy and built in infrastructure scores very high, the policy context

scores medium, while natural environment and people and communities ranking low (Gil and

Navarro 2013). Governance over all ranks also low due to the measurement of democracy

(Morlino 2014). The lack thereof downgrades the final result in this particular case (Gil and Zheng,

2015).

Iskandar, in Malaysia. The grip of the central government over local development.

We now focus on the way in which Iskandar has accomplished a smart model through the analysis

of the two chosen variables from Chourabi´s model (2012): governance and people and

communities.

We find a strong grip of the central government in Iskandar. The reasons are that the city of

Iskandar is to a great extent a brand new development, heavily affected by its geography:

Iskandar in Malaysia is situated on South East Asia at the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia,

within minutes from Singapore. For the country, and the government in place -which was re-

elected in 2013- the place is strategically located among major cross road of East–West trade

routes countries growing fast, like China and India (Hang, 2011; Ho et al., 2013; Siong et al.

2013). In order to strengthen a competitive edge for this Asian region, the government creates

the Iskandar Development Region Plan in 2006 (Bhaskaran 2009). The Iskandar Regional

Development Authority (IRDA), was established by a Federal Act of Parliament of Malaysia IRDA

2007 (Act 664) to advance the smart goals.

IRDA has been in charge of a comprehensive plan for Iskandar to steer the overall smart city

(Iskandar Regional Development Authority, 2012). The plan defines the vision for Iskandar:

providing a livable and sustainable conurbation. Therefore, development strategies have been

set to balance this vision together with economic growth, the quest for environmental quality,

social and community development (Shen et al., 2011).

Iskandar is in fact a redevelopment area, focused on attracting international capital: The Iskandar

Regional Development Authority has advanced figures over $30bn for the development of

Iskandar, and it expects more than a third coming from outside Malaysia.

In very early stages of the smart city plan, five strategic pillars have been defined: (1) International

Rim Positioning, (2) Establishing hard and soft infrastructure enablers, (3) Investment in catalyst

projects, (4) Establishing a strong institutional framework and the creation of a strong regulatory

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authority, and (5) Ensuring socio-economic equity and buy-in from the local population.

Governance in Iskandar crystalizes with a peculiar pattern, marked by the fact that all of the pillars

above are in early stages of development –although fast development. Management and

organization, technology, the policy context and the economy score medium. Built infrastructure

and natural environment score low. Governance, overall also scores low because of the high grip

of the central government over this particular development, underscoring local and bottom-up

initiatives.

Japan: an interesting case in network governance

We now turn to apply the same variables helping us to explore the previous cases to the case of

Japan: governance and people and communities. The governance of the smart projects in Japan

is an interesting experiment mixing decentralization of tasks and responsibilities to local and

regional governments. This, coupled with experimentation with non-hierarchical coordination

among public agencies and companies, makes for an interesting case of network governance.

We find cooperation and collaboration, supporting insights of new trends in public policy

management as presented by Cliffton et al. (2012) and Curry et al. (2014) in recent works covering

the spectrum for the European Union of 25 members.

Japan´s smart city model is based on four experiments conducted for a five-year period from 2010

to 2014 in four cities. They are known as smart city operational experiments. Since many cities in

Japan are geographically united, the four location include several border cities in each

experiment: 1) The Yokohama project, with six large commercial buildings testing the effects of

drawing power from storage batteries and energy efficiency measures; 2) The Toyota City,

focused on electric vehicles, battery storage and energy management, 3) The Keihanna project,

using parked electric vehicles as storage batteries and 4) The Kitakyushu project operates a

dynamic pricing trial with residents setting incentives to lower consumption and to share data with

power firms. Taking as an example of the network governance and collaboration, in the case of

Yokohama city, partners of the project include the local government, the university, technological

firms, power –including gas- and real estate firms.

Governance in the case of Japan includes evaluation of the projects as part of the process

towards smart goals: sub-projects carried within the selected cities are later supervised by the

Community Energy Management System (CEMS), in charge of verification and evaluation. The

evaluation of projects is centralized, and assessed periodically.

The Japanese government state that social infrastructures, involving electricity -energy-, water,

buildings, transportation, communications, administrative services and other elements, are

“indispensable factors for ensuring that the lifestyles of the people and businesses can be

supported.” Therefore projects search ways to make power use visible, to control home electronic

devices, hot water systems, and demand response, the linking of electric vehicles and homes,

the optimal design of energy storage systems, electric vehicles charging systems, and transport

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systems. The smart pilot projects focus on technologies to develop the smart grid, smart cities

and business models for the global market.

Although in an outset stage, a next-generation energy society is ingrained in the vision of smart

projects being developed in Japan:

“For resource-poor Japan, the large-scale introduction of renewable energies such as solar and wind power is absolutely essential to the nation's energy security and the reduction of CO2 emissions. The importance of these measures only increased in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. However, in order to introduce these renewable energies on a large scale, we must also increase the efficiency of power use and balance supply and demand, and establish a smart grid as a power transmission and distribution network able to stably supply power.”(Japan Smart City Portal http://jscp.nepc.or.jp/en/ )

Governance in Japan scores very high in comparison to other cases: management and

organization technology, the policy context, the economy, built in infrastructure and the natural

environment are all encompassed to a high degree in the smart city model (Gil, Navío and

Navarro, 2015).

New York, United States: the strong helm of research centers and actors from the private

sector

We now turn to explore the case of New York in the United States analyzing the two factors

chosen in Chourabi´s model (2012): governance and people and communities. Both factors are

helping us to find differences and commonalities among the cases.

Two main projects have been labelled smart in the city. First of all, special projects undertaken

by a team of data scientists at Bloomberg´s Mayor Office from 2010 (Howard 2011). The city

government has also committed to give the New York University access to all its public data. The

Mayor expects this research has the potential to change government operations and to inform

public behavior. From the above date, 2010, New York City government has been moving toward

making more useful public data available: from the 311 service -allowing citizens to notify

government about potholes and other issues-, to geocoding, performance and regulatory data.

New York has also launched the online 311 service request map.

The second smart project has been under the supervision of Dr. Steven E. Koonin, former Under

Secretary for Science in the Department of Energy in the Obama administration, who heads the

research agenda in New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress on smart cities.

He has a background as a theoretical physicist and science policy expert. The approach to

technology defined by Kooning at New York University goes from sensors to sociologists: science

with a social dimension. The university aims to devise better ways to manage traffic and curb the

consumption of water and electricity. NY University is further investing in urban studies and

development with the recently created Urban Informatics School in Downtown Brooklyn in spring

2013. Industry partners include IBM, Microsoft, Xerox, Cisco, Consolidated Edison, Lutron,

National Grid, Siemens, AECOM, Arup, and IDEO. Institutional partners include nearly twenty

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offices at various governmental levels.

Governance in New York crystallizes with a particular pattern whereas management and

organization, technology, the policy context, economy built infrastructure and natural environment

all score medium. We find very little grip of public sector initiatives in all these grounds, while

networks are strong between private companies and the research centers. In further research,

the role of legacies in these areas –and their impact- may be interesting to address in order to set

differences with other cities in terms of smart plans.

People and communities as a fertile ground for entrepreneurship in New York

There are some interesting projects for bottom up provision of smart projects in New York. All of

them are data-driven approaches. Citizensourcing smarter government is aimed at creating

platforms for citizens to collaborate around information to improve outcomes. The local

government has worked to grow its community of civic entrepreneurs and developers. The Big

Apps program, and the annual New York City’s civic application contests -known as NYC Big

Apps- are both open to public voting. Beside, Participatory budgeting seeks to embrace a broader

future as a data platform, and the New York City government data repository, the NYC DataMine.

New policies in public schools benefit form the agreement between Republicans and Democrats

on the importance of becoming literate in code thought of as essential as being literate in language

and math. Code day, a civil society initiative [codeday.org] and the hour of code are examples of

widely supported initiatives showing the social and political agreement:

[http://code.org/hourofcode]. The Internet is also being base of national programms such as the

president announced Computer Science Education Week via YouTube in december 2013.

Amsterdam: an inspiration for firms in search of sustainable options

We now analyze the variables governance and people and communities in the case of

Amsterdam.

Different and uncoordinated projects in Amsterdam city –starting from grassroots initiatives linked

to the cultural sphere with no leadership from the municipality - made the first smart city trade

mark (Peck, 2012). Today the local municipality links the concept of smart with energy and open

connectivity, and through it, becoming one of the world’s most sustainable cities by 2040. To

achieve this goal a partnership called Amsterdam Smart City (ASC) among businesses,

authorities, research institutions and the citizens of Amsterdam was set in place in 2009 defining

the smart city governance. Amsterdam Smart City Partnership has grown into a broad platform,

with more than 70 partners involved in a variety of projects focusing on energy transition and open

connectivity. There is a bottom-up component encouraging the active involvement of citizens to

test-drive new technologies. The municipality goal is that these sustainable projects reduce

carbon dioxide emissions in line with the targets set at European, national and city levels.

There are five cores on the 36 projects comprising Amsterdam Smart City: from living, working,

mobility, public facilities to open data. And the Amsterdam Smart City Partnership website is full

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of schemes that have been adopted, including a platform allowing neighbors and friends to safely

rent their cars to each other. Other initiatives include Onze Energie -Our Energy in English-, one

of Amsterdam Smart City Partnership largest projects, is being designed to supply 8,000

households with renewable energy, mostly through windmills.

Governance in Amsterdam crystallizes in a pattern in which the natural environment ranks very

high. Management and organization, technology, the policy context and built infrastructure ranks

high. The economy, however is a loophole in the model, since the city is affected by strong the

recession, as the rest of Europe, ang growth figures are slim.

From monopolies and hierarchies to citizen empowerment. People and Communities in

Amsterdam.

In Amsterdam we find a fundamental change both in citizen power over energy and in the old

scheme of vertical and hierarchical relations of governance over energy in place from the IXX

century. This is the only case studied so far where this new constellation emerges, and the

potential to shape society differently, both citizens and firms should remarked and stated.

An innovative decentralized generation technology is at the core of empowering citizens in

Amsterdam. By using ceramic fuel cells the aim is to generate the electricity on site. The Green

Bay buildings are already fully equipped with self-generated electricity. In this model, electricity is

generated at the place of consumption and transmission losses are just about 5%. The total return

achieved on energy grounds amounts to 85%. Reductions in CO2 emissions are a positive part

of the initiative. However, the most interesting part to us is the effect of empowering citizens in a

fundamental way. Energy was in the base immense gains in productivity accrued in the IXX

century. Energy, however, has been provided since then through hierarchical networks and this

has the effect to place the citizen as a consumer. The new model turns citizens into producers,

and could have some potential for small and medium size firms as well, alleviating thirst for energy

in today´s societies. This is the reason why Amsterdam scores high both in terms of governance

and people and communities.

The municipality of Amsterdam also experiments crowdsourcing on the AmsterdamOpent.nl

platform to learn how interaction with citizens can support local policies. In addition, a Facebook

application allows users to submit their ideas through the social network.

Analysis and findings from Shanghai, Iskandar, cities in Japan, New York and Amsterdam

In this work, we are interested in understanding the particularities of governance applied to the

so called smart city policies in six city contexts. Cities have different levels of development and

innovation rates in three different continents. In so doing, the applicability of the theoretical model

developed by Chourabi et al. (2012) has been explored.

In the first part of this work we have presented two main theoretical traditions addressing the

14

smart city concept (Saphiro, 2006; Winters, 2011; Komninos 2009, Caragliou et al , 2009, 2011;

Deakin, 2007, 2010, 2011). We have also introduced Benkler pathbreaking work on the networked

economy. The consequences of taking into account Benkler work on networks means a need to

rethink totally the way we study both austerity and leadership, something that is out of the scope

of this paper.

After presenting these theories in a critical way, we introduce the hypothesis and the theoretical

model base upon. The analysis of the cities, using an overarching factor in the chosen theoretical

model has followed in detail. Thus, to explore the applicability of one variable in the model

developed by Chourabi et al. (2012) to the urban reality of the cases. One variable has been

tested against each particular smart city plan: Governance. We now turn to present the

conclusions and findings.

The factor chosen in the model by Choubary et al. (2012): Governance, allows to test our

hypothesis, namely, that factors to advance the smart plans are key to differentiate cities smart

models. Besides a confirmation of the hypothesis, we find strong differences and some

commonalities in smart cities public policies globally: local governance responses are rather

diverse as far as objectives and also on the dimension of citizen participation --that we cover here

for New York and Amsterdam --as more deviant cases. We should consider citizen participation

an interesting variable to work with, as “recently, stimulus policies for citizen participation have

intensifies at the local level –form neighborhoods or district meetings o spectral meetings public

audiences (…) Associations have special importance because members express through

grassroots organizations (Navarro 2015:254)”. We might also ask whether we “can conceive of a

smaller scale citizenship that can provide rights and responsibilities o denizens of a local region”

as Bada et. al. suggest (2015:290).2

We build up on the works of authors inspiring our study (Hall 1988, Alba 2002, Lin 2007, Harrison

and Donnelly 2011, Shen et al. 2011, Allawadi et al. 2012, Mossberger 2013, 2012), and find that

these cities are struck by the same forces of globalization, economic restructuring and advances

in information technology as cities in the Western world, as Liu (2012:1141), notes. However, we

also find particular shapes in which these forces crystallize in each of our cases from the analysis

conducted. Forces of globalization are qualified through the local government in qualitative ways

and to a different extent, as we have shown. In so doing we find “new patterns of

intergovernmental relationships, with complex networks and new political actors at the meso level,

new territorial distribution of power and a growth of interest in local democracy (Alba 2002:1).

Looking specifically at governance, the city scoring the highest is Amsterdam, followed by cities

in Japan and by New York. Shanghai and Iskandar are both ranked lower. Following Alba (2002)

2 This is the purpose of the work the autor is presenting at the international conference Local Government and Urban Governance: Citizen responsive innovations in Europe and in Africa, in Lisbon 9-10 April: sesión on the use of ICT to expand the role of ciizens in urban governance: national cases and international comparisons. to be held at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, University of Lisbon, directed by Carlos Nunes Silva. Olga Gil is working together with Elena García Guitian (UAM) on the paper: The quest for citizen participation in cities. Shanghai, Jpan, Iskandar, New York, Amsterdam and Tarragona.

15

we see a country such as Malaysia consider local institutions –Iskandar- as service delivered

institutions, while others, including Shanghai in China, where municipalities are mainly political

and representative institutions.

Results are shown in figure 2.

In the case of Shanghai, despite a sophisticated and highly capable governance framework, the

normative question of democracy affects directly this low score. The variable governance is down

rated for normative reasons, following Morlino (2014) since the political party may not be

contested through elections.

In the case of Iskandar, governance of the local level is to a high extent controlled by the central

government, thus at this particular stage, the smart project being developed ranks low in this

variable.

In Japan local governments partner with firms in different industry sectors including the university,

technological firms, power –including gas- as well as real estate firms. It is the only case in which

evaluation of projects has been devised as part of the comprehensive smart strategy advanced.

In New York city the university and new research centers cooperate with the city council, mainly

on smart data projects.

In the case of Amsterdam we find the highest score for governance. This result, however, is due

to the over rating for participatory democracy and the fact that the small size favors experiments.

16

The discussion of governance allows us to make a contribution to comparative urbanism with a

global scope, as Robinson suggests (2014) by setting the specificities of the cases. These

specificities allow us to confirm Ganapati insight (2013) that even though estimates find over 70%

of the world population living in cities by 2050, local governance responses to this challenge are

diverse.

Figure 3, enriched by variables from Gil and Navarro (2013) further illustrate these results.

Figure 3.

From these findings we have proved the hypothesis that the factors to advance the smart plan do

differentiate the model of urban governance, as it does in our cases.

All in all we have found a higher level of variation and refinement in the governance variable for

the cases at hand. We see that the feed provided by the electoral connection is insufficient to

legitimate management of service delivery –in particular in countries where there is a legitimacy

crisis, such as Europe.

From differences found in the cases analyzed, there is scope both for improvement, innovations

and global learning and for specific local adaptations from a public policy perspective.

We are able to give some answers to Hollands question: will the real smart city please stand up?

We do so by showing qualitative and quantitative differences, and certainly from these

differences, a scope for policy choice and room for policy transfer. The framework applied allows

us to show the significant role that the local governments play in the cities. This framework

17

extends the scope of comparative urban theory and analysis beyond the western world, in the

East Asian context, allowing the comparison across cities. In all, with this six city case study we

make a contribution to comparative public policy and citizen participation. Further research might

assess also the limits of policy transfer, as suggested by Clifton (2014).

The work shows different 1) governance networks and 2) different scope for policies pursued in

particular cases. The implication of the research: there is a wide scope for global learning from

the differences among particular cases. The findings underline the specificities of smart city

endeavors and a wide scope for local responses.

In this work we have applied data to a theoretical model that illuminate and dissect the multi-

faceted strategies developed by city leaders dealing with XXI century challenges. However,

there is a need for further learning: first, more data on strategies to deal with austerity from

a creative stand point: the economy of the models, secondly, facing the challenge to

include a wide range of cases in order to learn from diversity. Finally, who dares to fight

the bull? We have presented Benkler work on the networked economy. The consequence

of taking into account Benkler´s work on networks is the need to rethink totally the way

we study both austerity and leadership.

Acknowledgements

I thank Carlos Alba from UAM Madrid and Judith Clifton, Cornell University for their comments.

Discussions at the seminar on Governance coordinated by professor Dr. José Ramón Montero at

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid have been very useful in the development of this research, in

particular sessions with Morlino and with Wojciech Gagatek.

About the author (Short author information with email info)

Dr. Olga Gil (olgagil@olgagil.es), read her DPhil. in Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence in 2000 after completing a Masters in Political Science at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1994. Gil is Professor of Public Policy at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and profesor asociado at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. Dr. Gil is currently working on smart cities and comparative public policies. She is member of the following international research networks: Coordinating for Cohesion in the Public Sector of the Future (COCOPs), and consortium H2020 “Emerging technologies in the public sector: Innovative and Inclusive Public Services”. Dr. Gil is also member of the Market Place of the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities [http://eu-smartcities.eu] from June 2014. Gil is author of award winning book Telecommunications Policy in the U.S. and Spain (1875-2002) edited by CIS and S.XXI [AECPA best book award 2003].

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