One Size Does Not Fit All: Framing Smart City Policy Narratives within Regional Socio-Economic Contexts in Brussels and Wallonia

Esposito, Giovanni; Clement, Jessica; Mora, Luca; Crutzen, Nathalie

Abstract

Smart city initiatives are increasingly dominating urban policy scripts worldwide, and their diffusion is centered upon different regional strategies. Adopting the Narrative Policy Framework as methodological basis, this article examines the smart city strategies developed by the Wallonia and Brussels-capital regions during the 2014-2019 period. Moving away from corporate-led deterministic models of smart city development, it shows that there is no one- size-fit-all approach to smart urbanism. Regional governments attribute different meanings to urban innovation and formulate place-based strategies of smart city development in relation to their socio-economic contexts, seeking to advance technological solutions to what they perceive as the most pressing problems of their territories and populaces.

Citation

Esposito, G., Clement, J., Mora, L., & Crutzen, N. (2021). One Size Does Not Fit All: Framing Smart City Policy Narratives within Regional Socio-Economic Contexts in Brussels and Wallonia. Cities, 118, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103329

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 23, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jul 16, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-11
• Deposit Date: Jul 10, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 17, 2023
• Print ISSN: 0264-2751
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 118
• Article Number: 103329
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103329
• Keywords: Smart city policies; regional governments; narrative policy framework; socio-economic context
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2786291