JCIT-01723; No of Pages 21

Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Cities

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities

Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases
Leonidas Anthopoulos
Business School, TEI of Thessaly, Greece, Larissa, ring road, GR41110 Larissa, Greece

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: 20 years after the appearance of literature evidence and the launch of the rst, pioneering cases, the smart city
Received 30 August 2016 domain remains ambiguous and generates an increasing argument with regard to its feasibility and potential. In-
Received in revised form 29 September 2016 deed, today the smart city domain is being characterized by an emerging market that provides novel solutions for
Accepted 8 October 2016
cyber-physical integration in the urban space; a competitive standardization arena that attempts to clarify the
Available online xxxx
domain and homogenize these solutions; a growing network of city alliances, forums and market places that
Keywords:
aim to bring together scientists, practitioners and city governments in an attempt to dene a common urban fu-
Smart city ture; and a promising international network of scholars that studies and evolves the domain. Nevertheless, a
Smart utopia common understanding of what smart city is or could be missing and generates questions regarding whether
Sustainable city a smart utopia - that is the outcome of the wedding of vendors and local governments - drives the above ef-
Resilience forts and leaves out real community problems. The aim of this paper is to perform an analysis of 10 representative
Digital city international city cases that claim to be smart. The analysis is based on a multi-method that combines literature
evidence, ofcial websites and reports, narrative city walks, and interviews with corresponding ofcials. The out-
comes distinguish utopia from reality, introduce a pool of evidence that can justify whether a city can claim to be
smart and depict a brief view of the future smart city.
2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
Smart city has been recognized as a forthcoming dominant market,
which is estimated to reach the amount of $3 trillion U.S. by 2020
(Anthopoulos & Reddick, 2015) and this produced value appears to lie
behind the embedded city's operational efciency and new entrepre-
neurship (Anthopoulos, Fitsilis, & Ziozias, 2016). This is an impressive
result that comes up from a 20-year effort, whose grassroots can be lo-
cated back in 1994 and the launch of the digital city of Amsterdam
(Graham & Aurigi, 1997) and the Geneva metropolitan area network
(so-called Geneva-MAN) (Van Bastelaer, 1998). Since then, several out-
comes have been generated, which can be summarized to an emerging
portfolio of available smart products that integrate cyber-physical sys-
tems; an extensive network of cities that self-claim be smart and dem-
onstrate local projects and action plans for their future development; to
an increasing number of city alliances and think tanks that try to bring
together theorists, practitioners and governments in an attempt to syn-
thesize a common urban future; and to several standardization bodies
that aim to clarify the domain and homogenize the corresponding in-
dustrial products.
However, despite this sufcient timeline and the above achieve-
ments the smart city domain remains ambiguous with an uncertain fu-
ture, which can be validated by the following particular phenomena:
E-mail address: lanthopo@teilar.gr.
several benchmarking models evaluate smart cities with both urban
and technological characteristics, which question the smart city capaci-
ty (Anthopoulos, Janssen, & Weerakkody, 2016); although the stan-
dardization bodies attempt to clarify the domain without generating
limitations for urban innovation, they keep on dening smart cities
with alternative approaches; an increasing scepticism of the smart city's
overestimated potential or extremely futuristic so-called smart utopia
can be documented (Allwinkle & Cruickshank, 2011; Hollands, 2015;
Hollands, 2008; Sderstrm, Paasche, & Klauser, 2014; Watson, 2013;
Yigitcanlar & Lee, 2014); and despite an enormous spending on smart
city development the smart cities cannot meet their initially grounded
objectives (Shwayri, 2013; Yigitcanlar & Lee, 2014).
This paper addresses these phenomena that result to smart city
fuzziness and aims to provide with answers the following research
questions:
RQ1. how different a smart city is with a comparison between theory and
practice?
RQ2. what pool of evidence must be documented for a city in order to be
considered smart?
Answering RQ1 is extremely challenging, since numerous articles
provide smart city with alternative conceptual frameworks or
benchmarking models. However, it still remains unclear what is the
form a smart city in practice. Moreover, answering RQ2 is very impor-
tant for a city to be aware of a minimum set of requirements that it

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
0264-2751/ 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
2 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx

Table 1
City coalitions, think tanks and organizations working in the smart city domain.

Coalition/group Description - source Founded Scope

1. 6Aika or the Six City Strategy A cooperation strategy between the six largest cities in Finland (Helsinki, Espoo, 2014 Finland (6 cities)
Vantaa, Tampere, Turku, and Oulu), with regard to generate new expertise, business
operations, and jobs and focus on open innovation platforms, open data and interfaces,
and open participation (http://6aika./).
2. Alberta Smart City Alliance Cross-sector collaboration between community leaders and city builders, 2014 Canada (110 members
forward-thinking governments, corporations, entrepreneurs, and academic innovators with 12 cities and 30
(https://smartcityalliance.ca) towns)
3. Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Comprises practitioners and institutions committed - under the Rockefeller Foundation - 2008 Asia (50 cities)
Network (ACCCRN) to creating knowledge, accessing resources, and inuencing agendas to build inclusive
urban climate change resilience (http://acccrn.net/).
4. C40 Cities Climate Leadership C40 is a network of the world's megacities committed to addressing climate change 2006 Global (80 of the world's
Group (C40) (http://www.c40.org/). greatest cities)
5. Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC) Singapore With the support of the Ministry of National Development and the Ministry of the 2008 Singapore
Environment and Water Resources (http://www.clc.gov.sg/)
6. Cities Alliance Global partnership for urban poverty reduction and the promotion of the role of cities in 1999 Global
sustainable development (http://www.citiesalliance.org/)
7. City Protocol Collaborative innovation framework (http://cityprotocol.org/) 2015 Global
8. City Resilience Proling Programme UN Habitat (https://www.cityresilience.org/CRPP) 2012 Global (10 cities)
(CRPP)
9. CITYNET City network in the Asia Pacic with the support of United Nations Economic and Social 1987 Asia Pacic
Commission for Asia and the Pacic (UNESCAP), the United Nations Centre for Human
Settlements (http://citynet-ap.org/)
10. Coalition for Urban Transitions International initiative to enhance national economic, social, and environmental 2013 Global
performance, including reducing the risk of climate change (hosted at WRI)
(http://www.coalitionforurbantransitions.org/)
11. Digital Cities Survey Center for Digital Government (www.centerdigitalgov.com/) 2011 U.S.A.
12. E-Forum Not-for-prot association active in e-government, e-Identity and EU-China Smart City 2001 Europe
development (www.eu-forum.org)
13. Energy Services Network Association Independent global, not-for-prot association under Dutch law. Members share the 2006 Global (32 companies)
(ESNA) same goal and vision and are utilities, software, hardware and service providers, and
solution integrators (http://www.esna.org/)
14. Eurocities Network of major European cities (http://www.eurocities.eu) 1986 Europe (130 European
largest cities from 35
countries)
15. Global Cities Dialogue on Information Non-prot international association of Mayors and High Political Representatives 1999 Global (over 200 cities)
Society (GCD) (http://globalcitiesdialogue.com/)
16. Global Cities Institute (GCI) At the University of Toronto (http://www.globalcitiesinstitute.org/) 2008 Global (255 cities, 82
countries)
17. Global City Teams Challenge U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, US-Ignite 2014 U.S.A.
(http://www.nist.gov/cps/sagc.cfm)
18. Green Digital Charter Commits cities to reduce emissions through ICT and promote progress in tackling 2009 Europe (cities from 21
climate change. Works under Eurocities (http://www.greendigitalcharter.eu/). countries)
19. IEEE Core Smart Cities IEEE research network (http://smartcities.ieee.org) 2015 Global (5 core cities and 7
afliated)
20. Innovation Cities (IC) 2thinknow (www.2thinknow.com) 2011 Global (330 cities)
21. International Council for Local Environ- ICLEI smart city (http://www.iclei.org/activities/agendas/smart-city.html) 2016 Global
mental Initiatives (ICLEI)
22. Internet of Things Council Thinktank for the Internet of Things (http://www.theinternetofthings.eu/) 2009 Europe
23. Market Place of the European Innovation Initiative supported by the European Commission bringing together smart city actors. 2011 Europe (4000 partners
Partnership (EIP) on Smart Cities and (https://eu-smartcities.eu) from 31 countries)
Communities
24. MIT Media Lab Cities Network MIT Media Lab (http://cities.media.mit.edu/living-labs/) 2014 Global (3 cities)
25. Sister Cities International Nonprot organization, which serves as the U.S. membership organization for individual 1956 U.S./Global (570 member
sister cities, counties, and states (http://sistercities.org/) communities)
26. Smart Cities European Medium Sized Three European university-based research centers (http://smart-cities.eu/) 2007 Europe
Cities (EMC)
27. Smart Cities Council Smart Cities Council is an advisor and market accelerator 2012 Global
(http://smartcitiescouncil.com/)
28. Smart to Future Cities Ovum TMT Intelligence, Informa (https://smarttofuture.com/) 2014 UK, Global
29. Smarter City Assessment Model (IBM IBM (http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet) 2009 General
model)
30. The Council of Local Authorities for A joint organization made up of local governments (http://www.clair.or.jp/e/) 1988 Japan
International Relations (CLAIR)
31. The Global City Indicators Facility Program of the Global Cities Institute (http://cityindicators.org/) 2008 Global
32. The International Society of City and Global association of experienced professional planners, recognized by UN, UNHCS and 1965 Global
Regional Planners (ISOCARP) Council of Europe (http://isocarp.org/)
33. The Open and Agile Smart Cities (OASC) City-driven, non-prot organization (http://oascities.org) 2015 Global
Initiative
34. The World Association of Major An international association of global cities working towards developing solutions to 1985 Global (137 global cities)
Metropolises (Metropolis) issues affecting large cities. It serves UCLG. (http://www.metropolis.org/)
35. UN-Habitat Agenda Urban Indicators UN Habitat (www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/Urban_Indicators.pdf) 2009 Global
36. United Cities and Local Governments Represents and defends the interests of local governments on the world stage 2004 Global (more than 1000
(UCLG) (https://www.uclg.org) cities from 95 countries)
37. World Council on City Data (WCCD) Global leader in standardized city data (http://www.dataforcities.org/) 2014 Global
International cooperative body of cities and local governments that pursues sustainable 2008 Global (97 Cities)

Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Table 1 (continued)
Coalition/group Description - source
38. World e-Governments Organization of city development based on e-Government (http://www.we-gov.org/)
Cities and Local Governments (WeGO)
39. World Resources Institute (WRI) Ross Global research and on-the-ground experience for urban sustainability
Center for Sustainable Cities (http://www.wrirosscities.org/)
has to accomplish before self-claims or self-congratulates itself for
being a smart city. In an attempt to provide with answers, the above re-
search questions, this paper uses a multi-methods approach comprised
of the following methodologies for a pool of 10 cities around the world,
which were selected and visited under the purposes of a research pro-
ject in Greece: (a) literature evidence's analysis for each case; (b) ofcial
websites' and reports' exploration; (c) narrative walk in each city
(Caprotti, 2014); learning outcomes from interviews with correspond-
ing case's ofcials. This combination of information for each city gener-
ates a real picture about each demonstrated case, while the collected
information for all the cases provide the reader with a clear and broad
snapshot in time of smart city's reality.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: Section 2 con-
tains a brief background that justies this paper's problem; then,
Section 3 contains the research methodology and a discussion of the
outcomes that provide with answers the research questions. Finally,
Section 4 contains some conclusions and future thoughts.
2. Background
Standardization bodies (International Standards Organization (ISO);
International Telecommunications Union (ITU); International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC); American National Standards Insti-
tute (ANSI); European Standards Organizations (CEN/CELENEC/ETSI);
and British Standards Institute (BSI) etc.) have drafted several smart
city competitive standards recently, in their attempt to clarify the
smart city domain and homogenize the industrial products, without af-
fecting its innovative character. Although the aim of this paper is not to
discuss these standards, a closer look on the generated denitions from
3 of them justify why the smart city remains an ambiguous and uncer-
tain environment: ITU (2014)) considers the smart sustainable city as
an innovative city that uses information and communication technologies
(ICT) and other means to improve quality of life, efciency of urban opera-
tion and services, and competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the
needs of present and future generations, with respect to economic, social
and environmental aspects. Moreover, ISO (2014) denes smart city as
a new concept and a new model, which applies the new generation of ICT
to facilitate the planning, construction, management and smart services
of cities. Finally, BSI (2014) concerns smart city as the effective integration
of physical, digital and human systems in the built environment to deliver a
sustainable, prosperous and inclusive future for its citizens. This fuzzy
combination of denitions is being supported by various conceptual
frameworks and benchmarking models (Anthopoulos, Janssen, &
Weerakkody, 2016), which combine alternative perspectives and tech-
nologies, while they evaluate smart city performance with a pool of in-
dexes, which calculate both urban and technological characteristics.
Moreover, an increasing criticism is being generated with regard to
smart city potential and several scholars (Allwinkle & Cruickshank,
2011; Hollands, 2015; Hollands, 2008; Sderstrm et al., 2014;
Watson, 2013; Yigitcanlar & Lee, 2014) claim that this partnership be-
tween the private sector and the local governments for developing
smart cities retain a futuristic utopia, according which future cities will
be based on fully integrated cyber-physical environments. Even compa-
nies like CISCO (2012) criticize such utopian visions that are dominat-
ed by the physical design, resulting in a jumbled mess of engineering
and architectural ideas supported by various technologies. Although
this utopia might become someday a reality due to the technological en-
hancements (ying automated cars, urban heat islands etc. may be seen
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
3
Founded Scope
2014 Global
in future cities) it remains unanswered whether these urban versions
are a requirement for existing and new cities, or even if they should
be considered smart.
However, despite this fuzziness and criticism, smart city has a 20-
year life and still emerges according to the following numbers:
- more than 300 cities of all types and sizes participate in approxi-
mately 40 coalitions, thinking tanks and forums or are being advised
by organizations, in their attempts to co-dene their innovative fu-
ture, while most of them claim to be smart, and almost all cities
want to engage in this era (Table 1);
- a novel, dominant and interdisciplinary smart city market is being
growing, in which almost all industries participate and provide inno-
vative solutions that range from construction (new district creation,
facilities' renovation, urban planning etc.); to cyber-physical integra-
tion (i.e., sensors and tracking systems); to software engineering
that generate smart applications and services; and to data science
and business analysis;
- an increasing number of scholars and schools of thought contribute
with scientic outcomes more than 30 international journals and
dozens of conferences (Anthopoulos & Reddick, 2015);
- all the international organizations and standardization bodies par-
ticipate in this domain.
3. Research methodology
In order to provide with answers RQ1 and RQ2 a combination of
methodologies is followed: 10 representative smart city paradigms are
investigated in an attempt to depict what a smart city really is with a
snapshot taken between 2012 and 2014. Paradigms with one exception
are located in literature; they represent each of the city classes (existing
and new city); many of the smart city classes (broadband, digital, ubiq-
uitous etc.) (Anthopoulos & Fitsilis, 2013); almost all the city sizes
(small, medium and megacities); and coming from almost all the conti-
nents. This selection didn't mean to exclude or underestimate other
existing smart city cases and was performed for the purposes of the re-
search project entitled Enterprise Architecture for Digital Cities
(EADIC) (http://eadic.teithessaly.gr).
The demonstration of each case starts from literature evidence,
which shows what the case is supposed to be in theory. Then, its ofcial
website was explored in August 2016 with regard to existing ofcial re-
ports about the city and the smart city case, accompanied by references
to the offered smart services, which show what really happens or what
the city authorities claim that their case is. Both the above evidence
could be marketing efforts, blueprints and masterplans or scientic re-
marks. Then, the narrative tool of a walk within the city (Caprotti,
2014) follows, where the city is experienced with regard to its size
and sustainable performance (open space and sustainable transporta-
tion existence etc.) and smart infrastructure or smart service availabili-
ty. An indicative set of smart infrastructure - that the walk tried to locate
- is dened by Lee, Phaal, and Lee (2013) (intelligent bus station, U-
booth etc.), while an indicative set of smart services concern public
Wi-Fi hotspot detection and location-based Apps or services (a Win-
dows CE smartphone and an Android tablet were used to trace them).
Finally, almost all walks were accompanied by an interview with case's
ofcials that took place with a purpose to understand deeper the exam-
ined smart city case. The interviews were based on free dialogues,

Table 2
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
Research methodologies' outcomes.
Case Start Literature evidence
1. Tampere 2001 Viteli (2005),
Ergazakis, Ergazakis, Askounis,
and Charalabidis (2011)
2. Geneva 1994 Van Bastelaer (1998)
3. Seoul 2009 Cities Alliance (2014),
Cities Alliance (2015),
Yigitcanlar and Lee (2014),
Lee, Hancock, and Hu (2014),
An and Kim (2015)
4. New 2001 Kim (2010), Lee et al. (2013),
Songdo Yigitcanlar and Lee (2014),
Shwayri (2013),
Sderstrm et al. (2014)
4
Ofcial website ndings Interview ndings Plan Open Apps/ Smart
data services infrastructure
1. Information and public services for 1. Project ended in 2005. X X X Wi-Fi. smart
residents, visitors and businesses 2. Emphasis on partnership with local universities. bus stations
https://www.e-tampere./english/ 3. More than 1000 freelancers in digital economy.
2. Smart city strategy:
https://yritystampere./en/smart/smart-city
New Districts: Vuores, Tesoma, city center's renovation
city's open innovation platforms
smart lighting and eco-mobility
service digitalization; health technology of the future;
and industrial Internet.
3. Open data (http://www.tampere./tampereen-
kaupunki/tietoa-tampereesta/avoin-data.html)
1. Information for residents, visitors and businesses 1. Geneva-MAN failed to secure social acceptance in Fiber optic
http://www.ville-geneve.ch/ 2003. network,
2. Pioneering quantum telecommunications network for 2. An updated FTTH network would be deployed in smart grids,
R&D purposes: http://swissquantum.idquantique.com/ partnership with the private sector until 2015. smart
L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
3. Services Industriels de Genve (LSIG), Geneva-MAN, 3. SWISS Fiber Net foundation in 2009 to operate the stations
FTTH and smart-grid operator http://www.sig-ge.ch/en networks (http://www.swissbrenet.ch)
4. Strategic Programme for Sustainable Development 20112014 4. SWISS Telecoms (the National Telecommunications
(City of Geneva, 2010) Provider) will offer voice, data and content services
5. Service Agenda 21 Ville Durable (City of Geneva, 2014); 5. Orange Telecoms (national Mobile Operator)
will offer mobile services
Enhance local sustainability in terms of environmental protection,
equity, local economic growth and citizen engagement
1. Information and public services for residents, X (but not X X
visitors and businesses. Seoul Master plan 2030. clearly
http://english.seoul.go.kr/ interconnected
with
smart city)
2. Open data (http://data.seoul.go.kr/)
3. Gangnam-gu ubiquitous district http://-
www.koreaittimes.com/story/20769/smart-city-
gangnam-gu%E2%80%99s-e-government-strategy
1. Case's marketing to attract new residents, 1. Explanation of the sustainable city's X Smart
visitors and businesses: http://songdoibd.com/ and buildings' planning. buildings
2. Public information for residents, visitors and businesses 2. Brief analysis of different types of smart services
http://english.incheon.go.kr/index.do (i.e., smart waste management).
3. Embedded smart waste management system: 3. A different approach had been followed by the south
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23757738 Korean partners for cases' extension.
4. Incheon Free Economic Zone description and benets:
http://www.ifez.go.kr/
5. The ubiquitous city program of South Korea,
according to the National Information Society Agency
(NIA, 2007): http://eng.nia.or.kr/
6. New cities/districts projects by POSCO construction
partner (POSCO, 2015).
7. Telecommunications partner (CISCO)'s approach in New
Songdo case: http://www.fastcompany.com/1514547/
ciscos-big-bet-new-songdo-creating-cities-scratch
8. Marketing videos by the project coalition: https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=fHO_zkHPTaI

dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
5. Vienna 2011 Cohen (2012),
Madreiter and Haunold
(2012),
Gaiddon et al. (2016),
He, Orozco, Straus, Kovalenko,
and Remezkova (2015)
6. London 2013 Cohen (2012),
Batty (2013),
Mulligan and Olsson (2013),
Gabrys (2014),
Lee et al. (2014)
7. Washington 1992 Cavallo, Lynch, and Scull
DC (2014),
Desouza and Flanery (2013),
Herrschel (2013),
Davies and
Msengana-Ndlela (2014)
9. The New Songdo case as a city-in-a-box product: http://-
archis.org/publications/
volume-34-city-in-a-box/
10. Foreign universities are installed in Songdo: http://-
blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/
2011/07/14/songdo-suny/
1. Public information and services for residents, businesses and 1. Explanation of the role of X X X Wi-Fi. smart
visitors: https://www.wien.gv.at/english/Public Wi-Fi spots the project management ofce: stations,
Mobile applications: dene common guidelines and IoT, bike
Handy Parken: guide for parking space location rules for all city stakeholders sharing,
Qando Wien: city guide in their corresponding smart city initiatives. car sharing
Car2Go: car-sharing service and 2. Historical evidence of smart Vienna.
Uber: driver locating service
2. Open data: https://open.wien.gv.at/site/open-data/
3. Strategy for Smart Vienna 2050: https://smartcity.
wien.gv.at/site/en/initiative/rahmenstrategie/
4. Smart city project demonstration
(Vienna City Administration, 2014)
New district development: Seestadt Aspern (Siemens, 2015)
Existing district renovation: Simmering
Education & Research; Health & Social Services;
Building Activity & Living; Transportation & Urban Planning;
L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Environment & Climate Protection; People & Society; and
Politics & Administration/ICT
https://smartcity.wien.gv.at/site/en/projekte/
5. Smart city initial project portfolio:
Innospirit for urban technology enhancement;
CLUE for climate neutral and resource-conserving
urban district development;
Transform with regard to low carbon city transformation
http://ww2.tinavienna.at/en/referenceprojects/smartcity
1. Public information and services for residents, visitors Moments from the 3rd Ovum Smart-To - X X X
and businesses, Smart London Board denition Future Cities 2014 regarding London:
http://www.cityoondon.gov.uk/Pages/default.aspx
2. Open Data: http://data.london.gov.uk/
1. Smart bins without embedded ICT
3. Smart London Innovation Networks (SLINs)
(http://www.smartstreets.co.uk/)
http://smarterlondon.co.uk/
2. The foundation of the Smart London Board
4. Mobile Apps: http://www.visitlondon.com/traveller-
3. The utilization of BSI standards for
information/getting-around-london/london-maps-
planning and management
and-guides/apps and http://www.buschecker.com/app/LON/
1. Public information and services for residents, visitors NIST Kick-off meeting of Global Cities Challenge: X X Bike sharing,
and government ofcials: http://dc.gov/ Wi-Fi. smart
2. Open data: http://opendata.dc.gov/ stations
1. sensor-based LED streetlights across
3. The PA2040 project in Washington:
the Pennsylvania Avenue
http://octo.dc.gov/page/pa2040-project
(PA2040 - http://octo.dc.gov/page/pa2040-project).
4. World Bank and smart cities: http://blogs.worldbank.
Interview at the World Bank:
org/category/tags/smart-cities
5. The kick-off of NIST Global City Teams Challenge:
http://www.nist.gov/cps/global-city-teams- 1. The World Bank partners - mostly -
challenge-workshop.cfm with governments in developing
countries with regard to smart city projects
(i.e., innovate technology and mobility
solutions: Smart City Gran Concepcin in Chile).
(continued on next page)
5

Table 2 (continued)
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
Case Start Literature evidence
8. NYC 2007 Pearsall (2013),
Cavallo et al. (2014)
9. Hong Kong 1998 Neirotti, De Marco,
Cagliano, Magnano,
and Scorrano (2014),
Angelidou (2014),
Vojnovic (2014)
10. Melbourne 2010 Holden and Scerri (2013),
Akura and Avci (2014)
6
Ofcial website ndings Interview ndings Plan Open Apps/ Smart
data services infrastructure
2. Organizes initiatives and workshops
for smart solution providers' engagement.
1. Public information and services for residents, Smart city of NYC: X X X Wi-Fi
visitors and businesses. New York City by 2030
Strategic plan (PlaNYC 2030) (NYC, 2007) and
1. It is based on more than 60 data centers.
Building a Smart + Equitable City (NYC, 2015) plans.
2. It serves more than 300,000 civil employees.
http://www.nyc.gov
3. Multi-tier architecture
4. Focus on security and cyber-attacks.
2. Open data: https://nycopendata.socrata.com/ 5. Sensors' deployment for environmental monitoring.
3. Open APIs: https://developer.cityofnewyork.us/ 6. More than 3000 new companies in data economy.
4. LinkNYC Municipal Wi-Fi network: https://link.nyc/
1. Public information and services for residents, visitors Digital 21 story: X X X Wi-Fi. IoT
and businesses. Environmental Impact Assessment (EAI)
process.
1. Blueprints for Hong Kong's ICT development.
Smart waste management.
2. OGC: strategic planning and management.
Local business forum.
3. Project implementation with PPPs.
http://www.gov.hk/
4. Several projects regarding sensor and 20,000
Wi-Fi spots deployment, GovHK-MyGovHK
L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
2. Government Apps like the MyGovHK (CPU, 2015): web and mobile platforms and open data.
http://www.personalised.gov.hk
3. Open Data: https://data.gov.hk/en/
4. Digital 21 Strategy (Commerce and Economic Development
Bureau, 2013) http://www.digital21.gov.hk/eng/index.htm
5. Real time trafc information: http://trafc.td.gov.hk/-
selection_e.htm
6. Route identication: http://hkerouting.gov.hk
1. Public information and services for residents, visitors and busi- Smart city Melbourne's story: X X Smart
nesses Smart City initiatives stations
http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/
1. Government structure explanation and the
role of City Council in the project.
2. Open data: https://data.melbourne.vic.gov.au 2. Initial smart city thinking after hosting a C40
3. Energy efciency and smart grid installation Cities workshop.http://www.cityofsound.com/les/
(Commonwealth of Australia, 2009; Akura & Avci, 2014) c40_melbourne_report_nal_email.pdfhttp://
4. Melbourne City Council Plan 20132017 www.cityofsound.com/les/c40_melbourne_
(City of Melbourne, 2013) report_nal_email.pdf
3. Dening smart city with citizen engagement
(Design Thinking Process)
4. Living Lab foundation (City Lab) in collaboration
of the city and 2 companies (Arup and CollabForge)
Council Plan 20132017 decoding:
1. Open government and open data
2. Creative industry's enhancement
3. The city remains livable in terms of Live/Work/Play
 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx 7

which followed a common structured questionnaire dened to cover

several project purposes (collect historical information, the implemen-
tation methodology and its current conditions etc.), while their objec-
tivity was based on voice recordings and minutes' analysis by the
project team. The identities of the interviewees are left out from this
paper due to privacy concerns.
A walk through the selected smart cities enabled a closer look at the
reality behind the marketing, blueprints and master plans, which pres-
ent corresponding projects as political, entrepreneurial and technologi-
cal responses against urban challenges. The cases are presented in
chronological order of visit, which occurred during mid-2012 and late
2014 and the identied evidence is summarized on (Table 2) and
(Fig. 3.11.1). Inspired by Caprotti (2014) and by the objectives of
EADIC project with regard to smart city's sustainability, each case con-
cludes to the following remarks:

(a) Scale, which summarizes project scope and helps to make sense
of the case over and beyond a limited focus on urban innovation
or climate change effects;
(b) Denition, in terms of describing reality against existing smart
city denitions;
(c) Sustainability, in terms of summarizing whether each smart city
case appears environmentally sustainable and efcient to sustain
in time;
(d) The fringes of the examined case, in terms of commenting the
case and providing with summary about future perspectives (in-
novation growth, the role of city intelligence against cities' com-
petition etc.).
Fig. 3.1.1. A representative view of Tampere.
3.1.2. Denition
According to the literature evidence and the meeting's outcomes, e-
Tampere addressed and succeeded in 2 smart city dimensions (smart
people - in terms of growing a knowledge community and utilizing
local universities on common targets - and smart economy - in terms
of growing digital economy and creating new jobs - ). Moreover, my ex-
perience and ofcial websites show that smart infrastructure exists in the
city (i.e., Wi-Fi hotspots) and smart services are available (i.e., smart trans-
portation and e-government services). The above assets enabled today's
ambitious Smart Tampere project, which consists of a project portfolio
with both construction and ICT projects.

3.1. The case of Tampere

3.1.3. Sustainability
Literature evidence about the smart city of Tampere in Finland When the meeting took place, e-Tampere was at its 11th year after
shows that it's an old case, that was launched in 2001 as a 5-year devel- its conception and had closed its initial lifecycle in 2005. Project deliver-
opment project (e-Tampere) (Viteli, 2005). Literature discusses ables were operational and hosted an efcient number of freelancers in
Tampere again in 2011, with regard to project results (Ergazakis et al., the digital economy. Several corresponding projects were under con-
2011), which show that Internet household penetration reached a 72% struction by this community of knowledge workers and this approach
and online public service usage a 50%, while a cluster of 20-new compa- looked quite sustainable that day. The city of Tampere utilized these out-
nies was registered in the digital economy. Today, the smart city of comes, it still exists today and has entered a new smart city era, which val-
Tampere implements a new smart city plan (City of Tampere, 2014), idate my past feeling.
with new districts' development and smart infrastructure deployment, Moreover, the city of Tampere had engaged several stakeholders and
in an attempt to enhance local sustainability and to attract new resi- avoided taking the risk of deploying individual smart projects, while
dents by 2030 (Table 2). today it utilizes past outcomes as open innovation platforms. Finally,
An hour meeting with the director of Tampere city's development unit in terms of environmental sustainability, open spaces and sustainable
took place on April 25, 2012 in my attempt to realize why the smart city ev- mobility had already been adopted, while today's new district construc-
idence had disappeared since 2005. I started my walk from city's railway tions and areas' renovation address environmental sustainability.
station to the meeting venue at city's Administrative Building that morning.
Although it was spring, the weather was cool and the city lakes were still
frozen but they had started melting, generating water ows in city's canals,
which operate as a renewable energy source. The city looked like a typical
European medium-sized city, with historical characteristics, open spaces
and large sidewalks (Figs. 3.1.1, 3.1.2). Sustainable mobility was encour-
aged in the city with car parking space removal and local bus transporta-
tion. During my walk to the meeting's venue my portable devices sensed
several open wireless networks, which were hosted by alternative providers
(i.e., by the bus transportation provider), while several smart bus stations
could be seen downtown.

3.1.1. Scale
In terms of scale, this case started with a realistic budget and scope
regarding partnership with the local universities and growing the local
digital economy. During my visit, I realized that e-Tampere had established
a dedicated partnership with the local universities, which could enhance fu-
ture smart city development. Fig. 3.1.2. Tampere open spaces.

Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
8 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
3.1.4. The fringes
Although there's a lack of literature evidence about the smart city of
Tampere, my experience shows that it's a successful story, which started
from the fundamentals: a city can be considered smart when its people
are smart and in this respect, it started with the development of efcient or-
ganizations that would enhance people's intelligence and create new jobs.
3.2. The case of Geneva
Geneva is the smallest international city with 200,000 residents and
one of the rst smart city cases that appeared in literature (Van
Bastelaer, 1998), since the local Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), en-
titled Geneva-MAN, was launched in 1994. This network started as a
pilot project with strong local government's support, it interconnected
the international organizations located in the city and progressively sev-
eral local companies. No more literature evidence about Geneva-MAN
or corresponding smart city efforts can be located. Instead, evidence of
a quantum telecommunications network installed in the city in 2011
has been published (Swissquantum http://swissquantum.idquantique.
com/) which is the longest running project for testing Quantum Key Dis-
tribution (QKD) in a eld environment. Today, ofcial reports about the
Strategic Programme for Sustainable Development 2011-2014 (City of
Geneva, 2010) and the Service Agenda 21 Ville Durable (City of
Geneva, 2014) can be retrieved. These efforts contain several innovative
activities but, they do not name them smart or intelligent (Table 2).
I visited rst time Geneva on August 30, 2013 to meet with the head of
telecommunications (director) of Services Industriels de Genve (LSIG) or
SIG. My initial feeling was that Geneva was the most accessible city Ive
ever visited, which strongly encourages sustainable mobility with several
means (free-of-charge airport train, free public transportation tickets
given at hotels, intelligent transportation network etc.). I used the nearest
bus station (Fig. 3.2.1) from Place de Cornavin to go to the meeting venue
at SIG district located at city's borders. Bus line 9s trip lasted about 20
min. The director offered me a 2-h session to explain the story of Geneva
MAN, together with SIG plans for Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) and smart-
grid networks' deployment.
3.2.1. Scale
Geneva-MAN was a public small-scale pilot project that was
envisioned in 1994 and its installation was completed in 2003, while
it was cancelled in 2005 due to the lack of residents' interest. SIG is a
public organization with 1200 employees that operates under Geneva
Kanton and energy, gas and heat local operator, which re-dened the
project in 2008 in terms of FTTH and smart-grid networks' deployment
in the entire city. The new project is part of the Strategic Programme for
Sustainable Development 20112014 (City of Geneva, 2010); it has a
budget of 200 MCHF (million Swiss francs), with 1MCHF for marketing
Fig. 3.2.1. Representative view of Geneva transportation network.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
purposes; a 7-year implementation timeframe; and a calculated 20-year
period for return-of-investment (RoI).
3.2.2. Denition
In terms of denition, the smart case of Geneva is a smart-infrastruc-
ture project (ber-optic and smart-grid network), while several other
smart services are being deployed by several utility providers (i.e.,
smart transportation). The pilot covered with a 100 MBps network a
small urban area, it was free-of-charge and offered voice and TV ser-
vices. The updated project will offer voice, data, TV and mobile services,
while smart-grid will enhance local energy efciency.
3.2.3. Sustainability
Only 50% of residents agreed to connect to the pilot, although it was
free-of-charge for households and thus, the pilot was cancelled. Howev-
er, all local companies were connected and a business-broadband sub-
network was successfully formed. The project restarted in 2008 in part-
nership with the private sector, with a vision to connect all (100%) the
households and the enterprises in Geneva.
Although the initial project failed in terms of sustainability, the revised
one follows dedicated plans. Additionally, the revised project is expected
to enable an Energy Savings Market, with great potentials to both the
SIG and the city growth. Moreover, the FTTH network follows open-ac-
cess architecture to enable several operators to rent proportions of its
bandwidth. Finally, in environmental terms, the city of Geneva is a
green city that follows several sustainable standards regarding its
open spaces and transportation, and has undertaken 2 corresponding
strategic plans.
3.2.4. The fringes
Geneva MAN passed two phases during its life-cycle, since it experi-
enced a 3-year of failure. Businesses appear more likely to use ber-
optic services compared to households, while the revised project is
well-managed and it is being implemented in partnership with the pri-
vate sector. These ndings conrm that public projects in smart city do-
main may not be well-dened in their beginning, while they cannot
secure social adoption although if they deliver free-of-charge services.
3.3. The case of Seoul
Literature evidence regarding a smart city case in Seoul megacity ap-
pears in 2014 (Lee et al., 2014; Yigitcanlar & Lee, 2014) that mention a
ubiquitous project in partnership between the local government
(SMG) and the local ICT industry. On the contrary, ofcial reports dene
several smart or green projects in Seoul, worth mentioning the
Gangnam-gu ubiquitous and centrally-controlled district with
Fig. 3.3.1. A view of the Gangnam-gu district.
 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Fig. 3.3.2. People waiting for the buses in queues.
corresponding e-government services and Apps; the Transport Opera-
tion and Information Service (TOPIS) (Cities Alliance, 2015); and the
Owl Bus, which is an innovative late-night bus service that is based
on big data analytics (Cities Alliance, 2014). Today, the local govern-
ment implements several smart and green policies, and offers multiple
smart services (Table 2). All of them are being deployed under the um-
brella plan Seoul Master Plan 2030 (An & Kim, 2015; SMG, 2010),
which does not label a smart but a happy city and that was concep-
tualized with a bottom-up process engaging groups of citizens and
experts.
My journey into Seoul began from Gangnam-gu district, a winter morn-
ing of February 2014. The weather was cold and I had both to walk and to
use the subway to access the city hall at Myeong-Dong district. Coming
from Greece where cities lack in open spaces, but familiar with smart city
projects I walked on really large pedestrian areas beside 6-lane streets
(Fig. 3.3.1) and I accessed really crowdie subway stations, which validate
the existing policy requirements for a pedestrian-friendly city. I was
watching the trafc and the brand-new buildings across the Teheran-ro,
while old ones were hidden behind the skyscrapers. People were waiting
patiently in queues at bus stations, which were not equipped with digital
signs (Fig. 3.3.2). However, such signs existed in metro stations, where ac-
cess to Wi-Fi hotspots was available but they were not accessible by visitors
(Figs. 3.3.3 and 3.3.4).
3.3.1. Scale
When considering scale, I realized that embedding smart technolo-
gies and launching smart services across a megacity requires time, that
Fig. 3.3.3. A representative open space at the city hall.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
9
Fig. 3.3.4. A representative view of Myeong-Dong district.
could last for more than a decade as the current planning conrms. On
the other hand, urban planning in Seoul can free car lanes from big
avenues for pedestrian or bus use as the SMG claims, but has space
limits.
3.3.2. Denition
With regard to denition, as a visitor I really did not feel like walking
in a ubiquitous nor an ecological friendly environment and in this respect,
there are many things left to be done in Seoul. However, cutting-edge
technology was already installed (i.e, digital screens on buildings and e-
ticketing systems), which validate a strong local ICT industry. In ecological
terms, some open space exists but the extensive size of old buildings
and trafc oblige many interventions (i.e., for waste and emission
control).
3.3.3. Sustainability
I saw people of all ages using mobile technology in the subway, which
shows that smart services can easily be adopted and sustain within the
city. I also saw a dedicated Asian community offering social services,
which leaves space for eco-living adoption too (walking, recycling etc.).
However, the growing city size and existing facility does not leave
enough room for many interventions (cycling lanes, heating network
etc.). In the case of Seoul, it was clear that the question of an eco-city
was conceptualized at a high level but dened with a bottom-up pro-
cess, which is proved by existing planning.
Fig. 3.4.1. A representative view of Songdo from Hotel Sheraton.
10 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Fig. 3.4.2. A representative view of Songdo under-construction sites.
3.3.4. The fringes
Most Koreans have adopted smart technology and enjoy the smart
services. However, poverty exists though Seoul, which can generate a
technological divide due to parts of community's inability to access
technology and corresponding opportunities (i.e., data economy).
Moreover, I did not feel that technology alone can support Seoul in the in-
ternational city arena. City's size and facilities (Incheon airport, harbor,
local businesses and universities etc.) are its competitive advantages
that are expected to support the city to sustain against Asian-Pacic
competition, which come from rising China, Japan, Singapore etc.
3.4. The case of New Songdo
New Songdo (or Songdo International Business District (IBD)) is a
district from scratch, developed on reclaimed wetland from the Yellow
Sea, covering an area of 48.26 km2 and it is located close to the city of
Seoul. It is known as the South Korean smart city agship and part of
a broader national ubiquitous city program (NIA, 2007). Literature evi-
dence starts appearing in 2010 (Kim, 2010) and follows with regard to
its progress and developments (Lee et al., 2013; Shwayri, 2013;
Sderstrm et al., 2014; Yigitcanlar & Lee, 2014). Several ofcial
websites offer useful information, while they analyze the master plan,
similar cases and corresponding technologies (Table 2).
I had arranged an interview with a top-level manager from Gale Inter-
national on the morning of February 19, 2014 at Sheraton Hotel in Songdo.
After my arrival, I could not detect any smart services but I experienced
brand new buildings, streets with 46 lanes but free of cars and in general
Fig. 3.4.3. The local school.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
Fig. 3.4.4. The mall.
a quiet city, which was still under development (Figs. 3.4.1, 3.4.2). Gale's
representative described me the project in detail and he drove me around
the city (Figs. 3.4.3, 3.4.4, 3.4.5) until the city boundaries, where
Samsung operates a smart waste management plant that collects gar-
bage over a pipe network directly from buildings, processes it and
returns energy and heating water to the city. He explained the sustain-
able planning of district's center, around which the Korean partners were
building with a less sustainable style that generates different neighbor-
hoods (American (Fig. 3.4.6) and Korean (Fig. 3.4.7)). I would say that
he looked quite skeptical regarding the project's sustainable future.
3.4.1. Scale
The case is a mega project - initiated back in late 1970s as a landll
construction and updated in 2003 as a city from scratch - and a plan
to complete by 2011, which end was later shifted to 2015; with a budget
that exceeded the amount of $38 U.S. billion; funded as a PPP between
Incheon Metropolitan City on behalf of the public sector, and Gale Inter-
national, POSCO and CISCO from the private sector. Other contractors
concern LG, Microsoft, 3M, United Technologies (UTC), and the archi-
tects of Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF). In terms of scale this project is impres-
sive to visit, but it gave me the sense that it was still under construction in
2014.
3.4.2. Denition
The visit and the interview conrmed that the case is a smart city
from scratch that follows sustainable planning and embeds ICT in its
physical systems. However, I did not experience smart services at the
Fig. 3.4.5. The golf center.
 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Fig. 3.4.6. A representative view of U.S. building design and city planning.
time of visit, which validates that Songdo's priority is to become attractive
for international residents and businesses.
3.4.3. Sustainability
Several business models were applied on this case for securing its
success, but it is mainly a real-estate project, which aims to host more
than 300,000 residents and to operate as an international city, a free
economic zone and an aerotropolis (a Western-oriented city more fo-
cused on the airport and China than on Seoul). The meeting showed me
that competitive interests struggle among the stakeholders in a city-from-
scratch, which can bring the smart city at a high-risk level regarding
its viability.
Moreover, the city was empty from visitors and residents at the meeting
day. I can't tell whether Songdo is or if it will remain viable. According to
my interviewed expert, a population of 600,000 residents were estimat-
ed to live in the city in 2016, but there's no evidence to conrm his say-
ings. I felt, that this was the best-case scenario, since the Korean
companies had already differentiated their design style, a fact that con-
cerned a project change, while several sites looked quite declined and
that they required maintenance (Figs. 3.4.3 and 3.4.8). However, in en-
vironmental terms, the city's downtown followed extreme sustainable
standards for buildings, mobility and waste management.
3.4.4. The fringes
Songdo gave me the sense of the signicant role that marketing plays in
smart city regarding their potential. Videos and articles about Songdo had
Fig. 3.4.7. A representative view of Korean building design and city planning.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
11
Fig. 3.4.8. Songdo branding of the tomorrow city.
generated great expectations prior to my visit, most of which I did not
meet. However, reports show that this marketing scored for the primary
contractors, since they have already secured similar projects overseas.
Politics played signicant role in Songdo too, with regard to South Kore-
an efforts to sustain against the opening Chinese and other neighbor
countries' economies. My visit showed me that a city from-scratch is not
necessarily smart in terms of service offering but, it is easier to follow sus-
tainable standards and to install large-scale facilities, compared to existing
cities.
3.5. The case of Vienna
Literature evidence about the smart city of Vienna appears in 2012
by Madreiter and Haunold (2012), who describe its launch in 2011
and context, while Cohen (2012) ranks Vienna 1st among 100 cities ac-
cording to a combination of indexes measuring local innovation, ICT and
quality of life. The project consortium is led by the municipality with the
support from TINA VIENNA municipal company and contains several
local and scientic partners. The initial project portfolio mainly focused
on energy efciency and innovation enhancement, while today a strate-
gic vision for 2050 (Vienna City Administration, 2014) lead several ini-
tiatives that vary from new district development (Seestadt Aspern (He
et al., 2015; Siemens, 2015)) and district renovation (Simmering); to
climate change adaptation and sustainable living (Gaiddon et al.,
2016); and to education and research. Moreover, the city's website
Fig. 3.5.1. Smart City Vienna's project manager ofces.
12 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
offers information, services and access to mobile apps for residents, vis-
itors and businesses (Table 2).
I visited Vienna on April 4, 2014, after arranging an hour meeting with
the Project Manager of Smart City Wien, at her ofces located at Schottentor
municipal ofces. Vienna is a typical historical European city, with an im-
pressive old downtown and a dense network of sidewalks and cycling
paths, and an efcient public transportation network of trams and sub-
way, supported by intelligent transportation systems. It's a city that has
followed a sustainable urban planning framework and consists of lots of
open spaces and parks, while car avoidance is encouraging. During my
walk, I located several public Wi-Fi hotspots, location-based Apps on my
portable devices (Table 2), while at the meeting venue I noticed posters
mentioning the Wien strategy (Fig. 3.5.1) and digital signs demonstrating
city's energy capacity (Fig. 3.5.2).
3.5.1. Scale
Smart Vienna consists of a broad project portfolio distributed among
local stakeholders, which addresses all smart city dimensions. It was
launched in 2011 and it deals with a strategic vision for 2050. In this re-
gard, it's a large-scale project, which contains all types of initiatives
(from construction and engineering, to service and app deployment).
3.5.2. Denition
Vienna claims that its smart city interlinks energy, mobility, buildings
and infrastructure (Vienna City Administration, 2014). During my visit, I
experienced several activities that embed ICT in an existing city, while
today several projects follow up and even concern district development
and renovation. Vienna differs in that the project owner is a group of
stakeholders, while the city obliges common strategic vision and imple-
mentation standards.
Fig. 3.5.2. Sensing energy consumption in Vienna.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
3.5.3. Sustainability
I realized that Smart Vienna is a well-managed case with a dedicated
project consortium and project management team, which could oblige pro-
ject requirements easily both due to the past agreements (Madreiter &
Haunold, 2012) and to the city size of about 2 million residents. This en-
gagement gave me the feeling that the smart city can sustain. Projects are
funded by local, national and European resources and address a com-
mon vision. However, local economic growth has not been prioritized.
In environmental terms, Vienna has impressive open spaces and sus-
tainable transportation networks, while it aims to enhance this capacity
with renewable energy sources, waste and water management
interventions.
3.5.4. The fringes
Literature evidence shows that Vienna self-claims to be smart and my
experience shows that rightfully it does, since several smart city projects
were being implemented or had already been accomplished, while the
city follows sustainable planning. Moreover, the ofcials followed a care-
ful process that engaged all stakeholders from the beginning that result-
ed to individual project owners' collaboration on a common strategy.
The case of Vienna can sustain in environmental and adoption terms,
and it remains to see if it will sustain in economic terms too.
3.6. The case of London, U.K.
Literature evidence shows that Cohen (2012) rst mentions the
largest Wi-Fi in Europe and ranks London in 5th place with regard to
the same range of criteria with Vienna. Later, Batty (2013) and
Mulligan and Olsson (2013) refer to data opening by the transport
operators. Finally, Gabrys (2014) mentions infrastructure retrotting
projects, while Lee et al. (2014) refer to a smart mobile App
(BusChecker), which provides information regarding bus arrival and de-
parture times.
The ofcial reports and websites (Table 2) demonstrate that an ex-
tensive open data store was launched in 2010, while the city grounded
the Smart London Board of experts in 2013. The board dened a smart
city plan (Smart London Board, 2014) with several initiatives regarding
citizen engagement, data opening and innovation enhancement. More-
over, several living labs (i.e., the SLINs) were launched in 2014 to estab-
lish local economic growth, while innovation districts (i.e., the East
London Tech cluster) supports them (Cosgrave, Arbuthnot, & Tryfonas,
2013).
I visited London for the purposes of the 3rd annual Ovum Smart to Fu-
ture Cities event (https://smarttofuture.com) (April 2930, 2014) in my
attempt to learn by experience about the case due to the insufcient litera-
ture evidence. It was an opportunity to listen about the case from
Fig. 3.6.1. A representative view of Piccadilly circus.
 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
government ofcials (David Willets, the Minister for Universities and
Science, Professor Sir Alan Wilson) and from BSI (Dr. Scott Steedman,
Director) who were speakers at the event. I made a round walk early in
the morning, starting from Russel square to the Piccadilly circus
(Fig. 3.6.1), then to the Knightsbridge and back, without being able to lo-
cate any smart services or smart infrastructure. I experienced several
open spaces at and around the Hyde Park and mass trafc due to the sub-
way May 1st anniversary's strike. That day, even the sidewalks were full
of people and I was thinking that smart transportation is useless when ev-
erybody wants to access the city and public transportation is out of duty. At
the venue, I experienced a smart bin demonstration (Fig. 3.6.2) with no
embedded ICT, whose intelligence was based on design that attracts cit-
izens to score with their gums and cigarettes. This solution was estimat-
ed to clean London streets from more than 1000 tons of collected waste
per year. Later, the public ofcials presented the initiation of the city
dashboards with open datasets; dened the role of British standards
in delivering smart city programs; and that London's challenges concern
city's resilience against oods, terrorism and cyber-security threats.
3.6.1. Scale
There was a mix of experiences that I gained in London: I realized that
the smart city case was at its beginning. The project was initially based
on data and standards and has a long-term running. London faces tremen-
dous problems where technology alone cannot provide with solutions
(i.e., the extensive trafc) and only cyber-physical integration can par-
tially contribute.
3.6.2. Denition
London focuses on a combination of initiatives ranging from data
opening and standardization to infrastructure retrotting and innova-
tion. Moreover, I realized that intelligent solutions are not necessarily ICT
based, but smart design and smart people contribute too.
3.6.3. Sustainability
Government ofcials looked determined to proceed to the develop-
ment of smart London and they mentioned the foundation of a forum
(later the Smart London Board) and the utilization of BSI standards for
planning and management. I felt that they can make it happen and in-
deed, today, several smart solutions appear to have emerged in London.
In environmental terms, although several parks exist, the city has space
limits and many things remain to be done (i.e., sustainable mobility and
waste management).
3.6.4. The fringes
Literature showed that London did not self-claim to be smart and I real-
ized that rightfully it didn't, since at that day the ofcials were completing
Fig. 3.6.2. Smart technologies is not only about ICT.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
13
their preparations to initiate a smart city program. It appears to be the
right implementation process: think rst; plan and engage; standardize
and implement. Of course, London performs well in the international
city competition and in this regard, it has plenty of time for planning.
3.7. The case of Washington DC
Literature evidence is rare regarding smart initiatives in Washington
DC. Zhang and Zhao (2009) claim that the city has a branding of
power; Herrschel (2013) discusses Washington State government's
planning with Smartness for regional development in 1992; Desouza
and Flanery (2013) question city's energy efciency and sustainability;
Brown (2014) signalizes that the city becomes - together with New
York and Chicago - more important geopolitically than the U.S.A. as a
country, he ranked the city rst with regard to mobility connections
and discusses potential smart planning with a view on 2050; Amiri
and Sadeghpour (2014) claim that the city sustainable mobility has
low potential with cycling due to safety reasons; Cavallo et al. (2014)
demonstrate that Washington DC produces the most 311 service-data
in the country, when citizens interact with local government for infor-
mation requests or complaints; while Davies and Msengana-Ndlela
(2014) show how the city's government adopted LED technology to
minimize energy expenses. Moreover, the ofcial website of the local
government provides residents, visitors and government ofcials with
various information and online services (Table 2).
I visited Washington in order to attend the Kick-off meeting of Global
Cities Challenge organized by the National Institute of Standards (NIST)
and to interview the Director of Middleware Engineering and Rapid App
Development of the World Bank in late September 2014. Attending the
workshop was an opportunity to understand how smart cities progress in
the U.S.A. while the experiences from the World Bank would help me realize
the smart city progress in the developing countries. However, I experienced
smart initiatives in the city of Washington DC during this trip too.
I walked to the World Bank headquarters on the morning of September
30, 2014, which are located at 1850 I (Eye) Street (Fig. 3.7.2). I enjoyed the
open spaces (Fig. 3.7.1) and the large streets of 46 lanes, without a heavy
trafc. My meeting with the World Bank's director lasted an hour and sev-
eral important outcomes about World Bank's role in the smart city domain
were explained together with its supportive role for corresponding project
initiation in the developing world. The director explained that the
World Bank partners - mostly - with governments in developing coun-
tries with regard to smart city projects (i.e., innovative technology and
mobility solutions in Gran Concepcin in Chile). Additionally, the
World Bank undertakes workshops as a means to engage solution pro-
viders, thought leaders and development partners.
Fig. 3.7.1. Representative open space with pedestrian and cycling lanes in Washington.
14 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Fig. 3.7.2. The entrance to the meeting venue.
In the end of the meeting I went to NIST campus, located outside the city
at the Gaithersburg district. I used the subway that took me approximately
1 h to access the venue (Fig. 3.7.3). I experienced some smart infrastructure
regarding subway's intelligent stations and an efcient bike-sharing system
(Fig. 3.7.4). The workshop was exciting since representatives from most of
the U.S. cities were there and presented with a homogenous structure their
smart city projects. A very interesting smart city case for Washington was
presented by CISCO too. It concerned the PA2040 project, the aim of
which is to utilize sensors and smart technologies to enhance visitors' expe-
rience and remotely manage, sensor-based LED streetlights across the
Pennsylvania Avenue.
3.7.1. Scale
Washington DC offers several smart services without being a known
case, it offers online smart services, it undertakes several pioneering
projects, while it follows a sustainable city planning.
3.7.2. Denition
The city can be considered to be smart, although it does not utilize its
full potential. No Wi-Fi access points were accessible and as a visitor I
could not access most of its online services.
3.7.3. Sustainability
Interventions already exist and literature evidence shows that the
local government proceeds carefully. In this respect, the existing solu-
tions are estimated to sustain. In environmental terms, the city performs
well with open spaces and smart mobility.
Fig. 3.7.3. The NIST Global City Teams Challenge.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
3.7.4. The fringes
I realized again the role of smart city marketing campaigns: Washington
DC is a smart city and offers several smart services without being a famous
case or self-claiming to be smart. Nevertheless, I wasn't surprised since it's
one of the most important U.S. cities. Moreover, I gained the experience of
smart city deployment in U.S.A. and in developing countries, from Global
Cities presentations and from my discussion with the World Bank's director
respectively. The U.S. cities follow NIST guidelines for project denition,
while they slightly focus on IoT. The World Bank on the other hand,
views smart city success in economic terms only and it partners mainly
with developing countries' governments.
3.8. The case of New York City (NYC)
Literature is quite scarce with regard to smart NYC: Cavallo et al.
(2014) investigated 311 service-data and rate NYC second after the
Washington DC. Nevertheless, there's plenty of information on the of-
cial websites (Table 2): the New York City by 2030 or PlaNYC 2030
(NYC, 2007; Pearsall, 2013) strategic document emphasized on sustain-
ability and smarter land use. PlaNYC was updated in 2011 (NYC, 2011)
with the contribution of the Department of Information Technology
(DoITT) and incorporated the Road Map for the Digital City for citizen
engagement and data enhancement. Under this updated plan, local
open data and open APIs initiatives were launched in October 2011.
This second plan was updated on 2015 to the One New York: The
Plan for a Strong and Just City strategy, which specialized smart city
on Building a Smart + Equitable City (NYC, 2015) and focused on all
smart city dimensions. This plan has resulted to the deployment of the
LinkNYC municipal Wi-Fi network in 2015, which consists of more
than 7500 links across the city. Moreover, the local government's ofcial
website serves more than 35 million unique users per year with sets of
information and services.
I visited NYC right after my trip in Washington for the purposes of an
hour meeting that I had arranged with DoITT's Deputy and the Associate
Commissioners on October 3, 2014 at noon in my attempt to understand
its smart city context. I used the subway from Times Square (Fig. 3.8.1) to
the meeting's venue in Brooklyn (Fig. 3.8.2). I was impressed of the city's
scale, trafc and noise, while I could not locate any smart infrastructure
or service.
3.8.1. Scale
Smart NYC is a large-scale project, initiated in 2007 with a recent
view to 2030. The NYC smart city is based on more than 60 data centers
that follow a multi-tier architecture, which is being migrated to a cloud-
based one. The project had started from serving more than 300,000 civil
employees, located across the city, while the overall planning highly re-
spects security and cyber-threat issues after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Moreover, the release of more than 1200 open datasets from more
 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx 15

Fig. 3.7.4. The local bike sharing system.

than 80 entities had generated more than 3000 new companies in data work on sensor deployment that deal with air and water quality sensing
economy within 2 years. and trafc control.

3.8.4. The fringes

3.8.2. Denition
A visitor cannot realize that NYC is a smart city. The project started
from interconnecting and serving local public departments in an at-
tempt to reduce government's internal expenses (i.e., with voice-over-
IP telephony connections) and evolves to open data release, to smart in-
frastructure deployment and sensors' installation.
3.8.3. Sustainability
All smart city interventions are being funded by the State budget and
respect a progressive strategic planning. However, according to the
interview's outcomes their viability had not been considered under this
planning, but the State aimed to move towards that direction soon. More-
over, open data had already generated a strong digital economy that
would support project's viability. Finally, although the sustainable city
planning was not part of DoITT's strategy, the Department aimed to
The world cities like NYC face the challenges of climate change, safe-
ty and resource control and in terms of scale the case is one of its kind,
although a visitor might not experience it. However, this may have
changed after the launch of linkNYC or other smart applications. More-
over, the community in NYC does not behave like in Asian exemplars that I
had experienced, although the local government has proved to be dedicated
in establishing the smart city mission. Finally, NYC does not expect from
technology to enhance its competitive role in the international arena,
since it has been the world's economic center for decades. However,
local growth is a top priority in the agenda and it has been supported
with corresponding open data policies.
3.9. The case of Hong Kong
Literature evidence regarding the smart city of Hong Kong appears
in 2014 (Angelidou, 2014; Vojnovic, 2014), which discuss the

Fig. 3.8.1. A representative view of Times Square. Fig. 3.8.2. The meeting venue with DoITT.

Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
16 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Fig. 3.9.1. Free Wi-Fi access booths.
development of a district from scratch (Cyberport) and of sustainable
living efforts (green spaces and walkable districts) respectively. Howev-
er, ofcial websites and reports (Table 2) show that the smart city of
Hong Kong is an old Asian case, that has been based on a smart city
strategy (Digital 21 Strategy) since 1998 (Commerce and Economic
Development Bureau, 2013). The Ofce of the Government Chief Infor-
mation Ofcer (OGC) of the local government is responsible for plan-
ning and managing the strategy, which has already been updated four
times (in 2001, 2004, 2008 and 2014). The implementation of such a
policy appeared to be feasible, since Hong Kong is characterized by a
centralized governance favoring shorter decision-making processes, a
high economic development rate, a low political risk, and unique
weather conditions that determine particular needs (Neirotti et al.,
2014). According to the latest update of this strategy, Hong Kong per-
forms well in most smart city models' indicators (CPU, 2015), while it
has undertaken initiatives for all the smart city dimensions (20,000
public Wi-Fi spots, real time trafc data; open data, green interventions
etc.).
I had arranged an hour meeting with OGC Senior Administrative Ofcer
on December 4, 2014 at the East Wing, Central Government Ofces at
Tamar, in a Government building (Fig. 3.9.4). I used the subway from
Tsim Sha Tsui to the Admiralty station, where I experienced free internet
service booths (Fig. 3.9.1) and an environmental station, equipped with
sensors that collect information about air quality conditions (Fig. 3.9.2).
Moreover, I saw posters advertising government Apps (Fig. 3.9.3), open
Fig. 3.9.2. Air quality measurement station.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
Fig. 3.9.3. Posters informing about government Apps on the streets.
spaces (Fig. 3.9.6), dense and dirty roads (Fig. 3.9.5), while my portable de-
vices located a public but low-performing Wi-Fi.
Several useful outcomes came up from the meeting, which validated
Digital 21 strategic thrusts and corresponding performance monitoring;
the overall strategic implementation was based on PPP; smart infra-
structure and lots of sensors were being deployed in the city to sense
environmental conditions and trafc; while several e-government ser-
vices and open datasets were being offered.
3.9.1. Scale
The smart city of Hong Kong was conceptualized in 1998 and has
followed 4 strategic updates, which makes it a large-scale project. More-
over, several initiatives have been undertaken that range from open
data and smart government service deployment, to IoT and new district
development, which synthesize a complex portfolio. However, this ex-
perience made me realize the importance of smart city for places with
the size and the economic power of Hong Kong that face challenges like ur-
banism and climate change.
3.9.2. Denition
Hong Kong self-claims and succeeds in most of smart city promises
with regard to smart infrastructure and smart service deployment,
which are mainly based on cyber-physical integration.
Fig. 3.9.4. The meeting venue.
 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Fig. 3.9.5. A representative view of Hong Kong old and dense spaces.
3.9.3. Sustainability
Hong Kong gave me the sense of a smart country instead of a smart city,
where a dedicated Government can easily initiate PPPs and establish its
smart strategic thrusts. Moreover, I saw mostly young people on the streets
Fig. 3.9.6. A representative view of Hong Kong open spaces.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
17
enjoying mobile technology, which shows that smart initiatives together
with the efcient local ICT industry make smart Hong Kong more likely to
sustain. In ecological terms, green interventions are obliged to a lack of
space.
3.9.4. The fringes
Smart Hong Kong is a success smart city story but, technology alone
cannot support the city in the international arena. Instead, the free econom-
ic zone and the well-performing administration are its competitive advan-
tages. During my visit, I realized the meaning of ageing society in western
economies: the average people's age on the streets was between 25 and
35 years, who all enjoy smart mobile technology. On the other hand, de-
spite local economic strength, poverty can be seen all around the city,
which may generate a technological divide due to inability to access
technology and corresponding opportunities (i.e., data economy).
3.10. The case of Melbourne City Council
Literature evidence mostly discusses about livable and not smart
Melbourne, since the city has been ranked the most livable one in the
world several times. Livability stands for local quality of life and citizen
satisfaction in terms of education, environment, stability, healthcare,
and infrastructure (Akura & Avci, 2014). Holden and Scerri (2013)
claim that livable Melbourne is the outcome of a policy and planning
path, which has transformed the city to an attractive workplace for
youths.
Nevertheless, evidence about smart city in Melbourne started
appearing only recently on ofcial websites and reports (Table 2). The
city prioritized energy efciency with smart grid deployment (Akura
& Avci, 2014; Commonwealth of Australia, 2009), it adopted an open
data policy in 2014 (City of Melbourne, 2013), while it joined the IBM
Smarter Cities Challenge in 2016. City's ofcial website offers online ser-
vices and information for residents, visitors and businesses, and useful
information about urban planning for sustainable living and the green
economy.
I had arranged a meeting with the Strategic Planning Ofce (SPO) of the
Municipality of Melbourne on December 9, 2014 and I visited the city right
after Hong Kong. After arriving at the airport, I was quite disappointed by
18 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Fig. 3.10.1. Melbourne representative open spaces.
the absence of a train connection with the city, instead of which only a 1-
hour bus trip's option was available. Downtown, during my walk to the
venue (Fig. 3.10.2), I experienced many open spaces and parks - where
people enjoyed the summer's sun (Fig. 3.10.1) - and creatively designed
buildings (Fig. 3.10.3). Moreover, I saw smart stops supporting an efcient
local public transportation network consisting of trams and buses. The
meeting with the ofcials lasted for more than 1 h, who explained me the
government's structure in detail and demonstrated their smart city efforts.
3.10.1. Scale
The city of Melbourne consists of 28 different municipal councils,
one of which is the Melbourne City Council that represents 100,000 ha-
bitants. The Strategic Planning Ofce denes Council's plans only for
this part of the city, while it adopts Victoria State's planning. The initial
thinking about smart city had started in 2010, when the city of
Melbourne hosted a C40 Cities workshop in its attempt to explore the
positive impact of intelligence on local sustainability. The city
proceeded with a design thinking process (Stimmel, 2016) for innova-
tion denition, which was supervised by the SPO and 2 local companies,
while a living lab (City Lab) was structured in this regard. This process
resulted to the 20132017 city's plan (City of Melbourne, 2013),
which dened objectives for open data launch and for local creative
industry's growth, while a smart project portfolio was dened (includ-
ing smart lighting; smart parking; metro Wi-Fi; and smart government
services). In terms of duration and city size, the case is small, while its
scope is extensive and addresses several issues.
Fig. 3.10.2. The entrance of the meeting venue.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
3.10.2. Denition
Melbourne City does not adopt smart industry's campaigns and it fo-
cuses on urban innovation that addresses community's needs. It con-
siders smart city as the outcome of a project portfolio that combines
software, data and cyber-physical integration.
3.10.3. Sustainability
The case of Melbourne followed a bottom-up strategic denition,
initiated by the city council and contributed by all the local stakeholders,
which enhances smart city's sustainability. Moreover, a dedicated city
unit (SPO) supervises the strategic implementation, which is based on
a clear project portfolio. In environmental terms, the city follows sus-
tainable planning and has utilized sufcient open spaces.
3.10.4. The fringes
The case shows that smart city may support - but it is not a prereq-
uisite - of livability. Instead, Melbourne is a livable city that seeks to uti-
lize technology in order to remain livable in terms of live/work/play.
3.11. Discussion
The above research methodologies return useful ndings for each of
the examined cases and for all them simultaneously (Table 2 and
Fig. 3.11.1). Smart city whose grassroots are back in 1994 mainly
evolves after 2011 and accompanies a city. In this regard, smart city is
rst a city, whose performance mainly is based on urban infrastructure,
facilities and city planning. Thus, if the city has sufcient utilities
Fig. 3.10.3. Melbourne a style of creative design on a building.
 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
Fig. 3.11.1. Comparative timelines with the identied evidence (Washington DC is not illustrated due to the absence of a corresponding plan).
(i.e., public transportation) and strong economic capacity (London, New
York and Hong Kong etc.), it performs good and offers opportunities re-
gardless its intelligent facilities. Moreover, if the city has followed sus-
tainable planning, contains enough open spaces and ensures citizen
satisfaction, it is more likely to become a livable city (i.e., Melbourne,
Vienna and New Songdo).
On the other hand, smartness has been recognized as innovation not
necessarily (i.e., the smart bins in London) but mainly based on the ICT.
In this respect, a city could be considered smart even if it has no ICT-
based infrastructure or services but it serves local needs with intelli-
gence (i.e., Geneva). However, the paradox is that all the smart city stan-
dards consider such intelligence to be based on the ICT, although they
provide city performance indicators that measure all types of local ca-
pacity. Thus, corresponding measurement has to be identied that
views only the ICT-based smart city capacity.
None of the examined cases concerns an urban utopia and in this re-
gard, people must reconsider their expectations from a smart city and re-
alize that it aims to improve local living against some challenges (climate
change, economic growth etc.) and to enhance city planning. Even a visit
to the tomorrow city of New Songdo does not give someone the sense
of living in the future and it is more likely for residents to experience up-
dated or fully automated typical services (i.e., waste collection, home's
remote control and heating systems). However, this journey provided
with the different experiences that a visitor gains by a smart city in prac-
tice, compared to the expectations that marketing or reporting may gen-
erate, and each case concerns a different paradigm, all of which provide
with answer RQ1. Since such a utopic expectation can be easily generat-
ed after a discussion about smart city, some cities appear to engage citi-
zens and stakeholders from the beginning of planning (i.e., Melbourne,
Tampere, London, Vienna). Such a debate on informating smart city
structures, that is, making cities controllable by citizens and other stake-
holders has been also documented by Paulin (2016), who claims that
smart city planning has to follow a stronger citizen-centric approach.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
19
Another important nding concerns the relation between smart and
livable city. All the examined cases and mainly the megacities (Seoul,
New York, London, Hong Kong) showed that smart infrastructure and
services support their transformation to livable ones, in terms of local
quality of life and citizen satisfaction but, it is hard for them to achieve
due to their space limits and existing facilities. Additionally, urban inno-
vation may contribute in maintaining a city livable (i.e., Melbourne and
Vienna).
Furthermore, smart city enhances local economic capacity regard-
less the city size. The outcomes from Tampere and New York show
that open innovation platforms and open data respectively can result
to comparable job creations in the digital economy.
Additionally, all the examined cases followed corresponding plan-
ning, which may differ in targets' prioritization but in the end, they all
aim on similar outcomes. Two objectives are quite hidden from strate-
gic planning: establishing city monitoring and improving city's compe-
tition in terms of attracting new residents, enterprises and visitors. On
the other hand, city's competitive advantages are not extremely up-
dated via intelligence, but technology is another asset in the interna-
tional race. Another important outcome is that the most successful
cases (i.e., Tampere, Seoul, Vienna, London, NYC and Hong Kong) evolve
with new or renovated districts, whose reason and role has to be inves-
tigated further.
Moreover, several types of coalitions have been identied for smart
city development. Furthermore, the city can be the project owner (i.e.,
New York); it can initiate PPPs (Seoul, New Songdo, Hong Kong etc.);
it can be the project manager (i.e., Vienna); while several stakeholders
can either be engaged in common efforts (i.e., Vienna and Tampere) or
they develop their individual smart projects (i.e., London and Geneva).
Results depict that indeed the smart city is supported by extensive
marketing and partnerships between cities and corresponding vendors.
However, smart city is more than a reality, which is useful for all the city
types and sizes in their attempts to deal with common future
20 L. Anthopoulos / Cities xxx (2016) xxxxxx
challenges. On the other hand, marketing alone cannot generate a smart
city, but a city can be smart without labeling it (i.e., Washington and
Geneva).
Additionally, a set of features that a city has to contain in order to be
considered smart has been determined: the existence of a correspond-
ing agenda, strategic or master plan that denes the smart city vision
and mission is a prerequisite, while open data, several types of identi-
able mobile Apps or services and smart infrastructure follow (Table 2).
These features provide with answer RQ2.
Finally, the planning that the examined cases follow provide with a
picture of how smart cities evolve around the globe (Fig. 3.11.1): most
cases have envisioned their future until 2020/2021 and they progress
accordingly, while some (Tampere, Seoul and NYC) have envisioned
their urban conditions by 2030 and only Vienna has dened its vision
for 2050. The analysis shows that this progress is based on the following
axes of precedence: open data release and digital economy's growth;
embedded ICT infrastructure installation in existing facilities (i.e.,
FTTH and IoT); city monitoring with big data analytics; and districts
construction or renovation with sustainable planning and cyber-physi-
cal integration. In this regard, a brief view to the future smart city can be
depicted.
4. Conclusions and future thoughts
This paper was initiated by the emerging but still fuzzy smart city
domain and demonstrated a snapshot in time of 10 cities with regard
to their intelligence, in an attempt to distinguish theory - or utopia -
from practice. In this respect, it grounded a corresponding research
question (RQ1) and used a multi-methods approach in an attempt to
provide a corresponding answer.
All the examined cases returned different experiences compared to
the existing - at the time of visit - theoretical evidence or to the recent
reports, which were compared with interview ndings. The primary
sense that even a suspicious - for a smart city - visitor gains, comes
up from the city's performance in terms of planning (urban spaces
and parks, streets, sidewalks etc.) and utilities' efciency (transporta-
tion networks, bike and car sharing etc.), and then by the accompanied
intelligence (creativity, Wi-Fi and App identication, smart stations
etc.). In this regard, the evidence showed that smart city is rst a city,
while smartness - gained by cyber-physical intelligence and services -
is another asset, which either improves/automates typical functions
(transportation, waste management etc.) or generates jobs and in-
creases citizen satisfaction (from trafc awareness, energy efciency
etc.). It is proved however, that smart city is a signicant tool for its
owners, since municipalities reduce their internal spending (i.e., NYC)
and can have real-time monitoring (air quality, streets safety etc.). A
brief view to the future smart city according to the examined cases' vi-
sions can be depicted, which shows that cities try to enhance their living
- the latest by 2050 - with cyber-physical integration on existing, reno-
vated and new districts; with sustainably planned new districts; with
digital economy's growth; and with city monitoring.
Although the aim of this paper was not to compare the investigated
cities among each other with regard to their intelligent performance,
useful outcomes can comprise a set of a features that a city must hold
in order to self-claim to be smart. These features provide with answer
the corresponding question (RQ2) and concern the existence of mini-
mum the following: a smart agenda; open data; services or Apps; and
some smart infrastructure. All of them can be unquestioned since they
can easily be validated even from distance or by visitors.
Some limitations come from this study, which concern the experi-
ence that a resident gain from a smart city, which would be denitely
different to a visitor's sense, since an inhabitant is aware of the local
problems, while he has access to most of the offered smart services.
Such an investigation concerns future thoughts of the authors. More-
over, all the examined cases are famous cities or capitals, while several
others claim to be smart and potentially offer alternative experiences.
Please cite this article as: Anthopoulos, L., Smart utopia VS smart reality: Learning by experience from 10 smart city cases, Cities (2016), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.10.005
However, this pool of cities that was visited for the purposes of a re-
search project is representative, it comes from almost all continents -
evidence even for developing countries was collected by the meeting
with the World Bank - while it can be considered enough to return a suf-
cient picture of the difference between utopia and reality. Finally,
some more future thoughts will address the paradox that all the smart
city standards consider smartness as an ICT-based intelligence, while
on the contrary they provide city performance indicators that measure
all types of local capacity.
Acknowledgements
This research has been co-nanced by the European Union (Europe-
an Social Fund - ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational
Program Education and Lifelong Learning of the National Strategic
Reference Framework (NSRF) - Research Funding Program: ARCHIME-
DES III. Investing in knowledge society through the European Social
Fund. Special thanks to all contributors for their input in this study: di-
rector of Tampere city's development unit; head of telecommunications
of Services Industriels de Genve (LSIG); Gale International; project
manager of Smart City Wien; Director of Middleware Engineering and
Rapid App Development of the World Bank; NYC DoITT's Deputy and
the Associate Commissioners; OGC Senior Administrative Ofcer, The
Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; and
Strategic Planning Ofce (SPO) of the Municipality of Melbourne.
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