Smart City Configurations: A Conceptual Approach to Assess Smart City Practices and Outcomes

This paper proposes a novel conceptual framework as analytical tool to support the systematic and methodical investigation of smart city instantiations. Integrating existing fragmented perspectives, we propose three analytical dimensions (integration, automation and adaptivity) to describe the relationships between four foundational smart city aspects (technology, people, institutions and material environment). Together dimensions and foundational aspects create smart city configurations (SCCs). SCCs enable the systematic description, assessment and comparison of specific smart city instantiations. SCCs can further help to make transparent the basis for policy decisions and implicit assumptions of decision-makers aiding the legitimacy, explainability and accountability of smart city efforts.