The Problems and Conditions of Effective Public Participation in Creating a Smart Sustainable City

Abstract

The technological arrangement of sustainable development ideas into modern life of cities is represented in the concept of a smart sustainable city. The evolution of smart settlements has convincingly proved that one of the key benefits of a smart city and, accordingly, a criterion for achieving smart sustainability, is the involvement and participation of citizens in public life. At the same time, it is important to understand that public participation is not only a criterion, but also a tool for achieving sustainable local development. Unfortunately, this fact is not adequately recognized by the domestic system of the public and municipal administration. As a result of the existing vision the Russian State strategy and the corresponding Programmes of introducing the concept of a smart sustainable city in municipal management practices appeared. This is happening the way that is traditional for our country: through the “top-down” introduction. Public participation, various institutional and informal forms of it face a number of problems in the current Russian conditions, which do not allow using the potential of social involvement in the formation of sustainable settlements to the fullest extent. The most important problems are the lack of public confidence in the institutions of power and the conviction that it is impossible to influence their actions, as well as the lack of knowledge and experience of self-organization of joint activities, insufficient awareness of their civil rights and forms of their realization, low level of self-awareness. Conclusion: the key condition for using modern organizational and economic tools to ensure the effective operation of communities, including the use of the “Smart city” project, is training, technology transfer, dissemination of knowledge and best practices, not only among inhabitants and activists, but also among officials and other decision-makers with public participation.