Smart communities inside local governments: a pie in the sky?

Purpose - Via embracing the idea that who directly experiences a problem is keener to develop more innovative solutions, local governments have started to engage smart communities in the innovation of public services’ delivery. Even if the meaning of “smart community” generally refers to the community participation in the innovation of public services for urban living, local governments have predominantly stimulated the participation of their citizens. But innovative ideas can potentially spring out also from the insiders. This paper aims to find the managerial and technological issues that public managers have to consider when planning an internal smart community initiative. Methodology - For this purpose, the authors analyse the case study of the Municipality of Turin that developed a participatory smart community project, named Innova.TO, through the theoretical lens of sensemaking (Weick et al., 2005; Weick, 1979). Findings - Results show that there are three main aspects to be considered when implementing smart community initiatives in local governments. Originality - Even if there is the potential, the engagement of public employees in a smart community of innovators is not straightforward and several complexities may challenge its success. Otherwise, real-life examples and empirical studies are still episodic. As a consequence, if it is concretely possible to build a smart community of innovators inside a local government still remains a question to which this paper aims to response

A Framework to Use Public-Private Partnership for Smart City Projects

The concept of Smart City has been emerging as a strategic set of integrated initiatives encompassing infrastructures, technology and digital services for the purpose of enhancing the quality of life of citizens. However, the development and implementation of Smart City projects require considerable investments that are difficult to fund with traditional public finance. In this context, Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) appear to be suitable solutions to overcome the shortage of public finance and cuts on public spending. However, the adoption of PPP forms for Smart City projects has not been fully explored and only experimentally applied so far. In order to promote the usage of PPP to finance Smart City initiatives, this paper proposes some PPP financial instruments and discusses the associated strengths and weaknesses. In particular, the use of Project Finance, Revenue Sharing and Social Impact Bonds are suggested as sound alternatives and suitable sources of financing for Smart City project

Defining the Role of the Smart-City Manager: An Analysis of Responsibilities and Skills

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to theoretically explore the role of the Smart City (SC) Manager in public organisations and municipalities and to analyse their main responsibilities, competences and required skills. Methodology: Based on an empirical questionnaire administered to a number of public employees, a Responsibility Index (RI) is defined in order to identify the SC domains that are opportune to be included under the responsibility of the newly introduced role of a SC Manager. The questionnaire is also an opportunity for understanding the main required competences and skills through a factor analysis and qualitative investigation of the responses. Findings: The analysis reveals that the SC Manager has to deal with both the hard and soft domains of the SC management task, thus configuring a horizontal role with limited budget responsibility. Moreover, the SC Manager is required to have city planning capabilities, legal competences, soft management skill abilities, and knowledge of economics and finance, besides some basic management curriculum requirements. Finally, she is required to be politically honest. Originality: The increasing social problems are challenging public administrations to adopt new strategies and actions in order to create smarter cities. With this regard, some cities have created a dedicated organisational unit focused on planning and implementation of SC projects, led by a SC Manager. However, academic and professional studies in this arena are still scarce. Indeed, since now, the research on SC has been hosted primarily in architecture and social sciences journals and in engineering and computer science ones, while only few authors have explored the issue under the lens of the managerial theories

Using the private finance initiative for energy efficiency projects at the urban scale

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest the usage of the project finance (PF) scheme as a suitable mechanism to fund energy efficiency projects at the urban scale and present its advantages and adoption barriers. Design/methodology/approach – A case study is developed to renew the traffic lighting system of an Italian town via replacement of the old lamps with new light-emitting diode (LED) technology. Several partners are involved in the case project to construct a viable PF arrangement. Findings – The case study presents the viability of the proposed PF scheme that provides for acceptable financial returns and bankability. However, it also shows that the need for short concession periods may call for a public contribution to the initial funding to make the project more attractive to private investors. Practical implications – This case study is a useful guideline for governments and promoters to using the PF arrangement to fund energy efficiency investments in urban settings. It helps designing an appropriate PF scheme and understanding the advantages of PF to reduce risk and, consequently, increase the debt leverage and profitability of energy efficiency projects. Originality/value – This paper contributes to bridging the gap about the lack of works addressing the implementation of the PF mechanism in the energy efficiency sector in urban areas. The importance of this paper is also associated with the shortage of traditional public finance faced by many cities that forces to seek for alternate forms of financing