Understanding Smart City Projects and Priorities across Large, Medium and Small Cities in the United States

Abstract

Building smart city systems has become a popular strategy for urban planners and developers. Applying the perspectives of social informatics to a dataset comprising 12 cities in the USA, this paper explores the adoption of smart city initiatives in small, medium and large cities. Complementing previous studies, the analysis builds on a comprehensive conceptualization of the smart city concept that includes the dimensions of government, physical environment and society. Our findings suggest that all cities in the sample experience significant pressures from population growth, and that smaller cities have less complex approaches to smart city adoption. In addition, medium cities appear to emphasize more on the social dimension of smart cities.