Smart Cities Driving Sustainability

AI, sensors, virtual or augmented reality—technologies are revolutionizing the planning, management, and oversight of cities and territories.

However, digital technologies become irrelevant without a sustainability goal and real strategies grounded in the specific characteristics of each territory. And without increased collaboration between public authorities, businesses, academia, and civil society.
A smart city is meaningless without real urban strategies based on local specificities.

By: Nathalie Crutzen

In November 2024, the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona crowned Shenzhen as the Smart City of the Year 2024. A recognition that brings the concept of the sustainable and smart city back to the forefront of public debate.
This concept has indeed grown in popularity in both literature and practice over the past 15 years. While the term is not new—popularized in the 2000s by tech companies like IBM—there is no universally agreed-upon definition. For the purposes of this article, we define a smart city as “an ecosystem of stakeholders engaged in a sustainable transition process (addressing economic, environmental, and social issues), on a given territory (urban or otherwise), using digital technologies as a means and enabler to carry out related actions.”
Smart city initiatives can involve projects across various sectors: mobility, smart energy and lighting, water and waste management, online administration, or even tourism.

Many questions arise regarding their management, governance, and impacts. How are strategies for sustainable and smart cities developed and connected to existing local priorities? How are these dynamics actually implemented? What is their impact on entrepreneurship and urban innovation? Studies I have recently conducted offer some insights.

A Matter of Local Priorities
Today, local governments must make decisions about which priorities to include in their smart city agendas. According to academic literature, smart city initiatives should ideally be based on pre-identified local issues, as well as existing local priorities—such as sustainable mobility or water and energy management. To give a current example, territories like Valencia or Venice need to build their strategies starting from their specific challenges, especially regarding water management—whether related to flooding or drought.

Collaboration: A Pillar of Smart Cities
Collaboration among various local stakeholders is essential to the success of sustainable and smart city dynamics. The “quadruple helix” model emphasizes the importance of collaboration between four spheres: public authorities, businesses, academia and science, and civil society. A study highlights three key factors that facilitate collaboration among stakeholders in smart and sustainable urban ecosystems:
– Stronger collaboration is observed in territories with a clear strategy. Having a shared direction helps overcome traditional silos or divisions—whether in logic, interests, or time horizons—and thereby encourages collaboration.
– A dedicated coordinator for the smart and sustainable transition helps facilitate coordination among the many stakeholders. They streamline communication and break down sectoral silos to organize cross-cutting initiatives. This role is particularly helpful in large urban ecosystems like metropolitan areas, where the complexity of interactions calls for more structured governance. Many of these cities now recruit smart city project managers.
– The specific characteristics and priorities of the territory influence collaboration. For example, in Belgium, projects related to the environment—like energy or water management—are especially effective in fostering collaboration in Wallonia. In contrast, projects focused on mobility and citizen participation are more common in Flanders.

Nonetheless, recent research shows that collaboration often fails, and the success factors vary depending on the local context.

A Boost for Entrepreneurship
Implementing sustainable and smart city dynamics in a given territory can also have a stimulating effect on entrepreneurship—particularly digital and ecological entrepreneurship.
Research shows a positive correlation between these initiatives and the rate of new business creation. The more a territory engages in a smart city approach, the higher its new business creation rate tends to be.

Among Belgian smart city initiatives, our researchers have observed that when they follow a so-called “bottom-up” logic, the rate of entrepreneurship is even higher. Active participation from all local stakeholders thus appears beneficial for developing entrepreneurship within smart and sustainable cities.
In the case of large cities, the link between smart cities and digital entrepreneurship is further strengthened. This aligns with the idea that (large) cities tend to position themselves as digital hubs within the Smart City context.

Preventing Extreme Weather Events
A concept supported by the European Commission with the December 12 launch of the European digital innovation consortium CitiVerse. Bringing together fourteen member states with a budget of 80 million euros, it aims to make Europe a world leader in emerging technologies.
CitiVerse will focus on AI-based solutions to optimize traffic, energy, and water management. Digital tools will notably help identify extreme weather events, such as the recent floods in the Valencia region or the cyclone in Mayotte.
Always starting from local specificities and prioritizing collaboration among all actors in the territory.

This article was written in collaboration with Dr. Arnaud Stiepen, expert in science communication.

Translated from the original French version published in The Conversation.