Smart city policy in developing countries: Case study of the new administrative capital in Egypt
Funding information: Pécsi Tudományegyetem
Abstract
Smart city policy has been employed through the last two decades to accommodate the urban modifications, which utilize information technology, innovation, and smart management for urban governance. The study aims to discuss the case study for the Egyptian condition's smart city model and policy, using policy narrative analysis for the fourth-generation cities and the pioneer model. From a policy perspective, the Egyptian smart city model's contribution has received little attention from previous studies dealing with the smart city in the Egyptian context. Therefore, the present research explores presenting and discuss the Egyptian smart city model as an innovation development policy perspective. The analysis employs The new administrative capital as a case study. The policy documents and the online interview with Administrative Capital for Urban Development Company officials have been used. Our findings found that the NAC might be the successful path for the smart city model inside the Egyptian context, considering some implementation policy recommendations. The NAC's innovative components deem a prompt to invigorate the regional and national levels' innovation process. The Egyptian case study's smart city model uses a holistic strategy with a quadruple helix to develop the urban system to attract knowledge and innovation.
1 INTRODUCTION
Modern urban development has been inspired by discussions of smart cities, not only in developed countries but also in developing. The second type usually seeks effective urban development tools to face infrastructure inefficiencies, transportation challenges, waste management, continuous environmental depletion, and deficient governance tools besides social issues such as security and crime prohibition (Fromhold-Eisebith & Eisebith, 2019; Laufs et al., 2019). These lead to the necessity of understanding the local urban development issues inside every country to set its suitable model. Change et al. (2018) argued that rather than apply previously used models for developed regions, a region's developmental characteristics would be used, with working its urban renovation by knowledge and know-how transfer (Chang et al., 2018). Smart city concept is multidisciplinary, which adopted ICT as a core drive to face urban growth issues, develop a better future for its citizens from the smart economy, smart environment, smart mobility, and provide a quality life level. In the third millennium, cities are increasingly duty as spatial environments for innovation, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, and knowledge (Kourtit et al., 2012). These Urban conversions have prompted much research on urban smartness to adapt to urban areas' contemporary components. The term “smart” appeared in urban planning in the 1990s in the USA in the “smart growth” Context to face urban agglomeration issues. Meanwhile, the related research began to grow significantly in 2010 when the EU has started using the term “smart” to qualify sustainable urban development projects (Milošević et al., 2019).
Egypt is one of the emerging economies in the MENA region, with potent transformation paths. Vision 2030 and the national strategic plan 2052 have been established for holistic development, as an aspect of it is smart city policy, innovation, and knowledge. The country has started over-ambitious programs and projects for all sectors beginning in 2013, accompanied by its political and economic changes, urban and regional development as a top of these priorities. For facing urban and regional challenges, the current Egyptian administration sought to expand the urban development land. One of these megaprojects is constructing 14 new cities from the fourth-generation cities and establishing a smart city model for the Egyptian context, progressing the country's infrastructure and supporting a steady investment environment (Hussein & Pollock, 2019).
Little is published about the smart city's Egyptian model from the policy perspective, especially the pioneer model for the new administrative capital (NAC) policy, which started its establishment in 2015. Studies that dealt with the NAC did not address the model components and the NAC studies' policy aspect. Besides, this current study contributes for the first time to present the proposed model for a smart city with a discussion of the model. The present study's key strength was giving the Egyptian policy perspective considered a new experience for the smart city era in the Egyptian context. These findings provide insights into whether the ability to apply the model for other Egyptian cities. One of the NAC model's main strengths is determining the particular governance system for managing the smart city model through the New Capital for Urban Development Company. Besides, the smart services model has been distinguished by a technology-based model and determining aspects. The study contributes to our understanding of the smart city's role as the spatial environment for innovation systems, which has evidence from the NAC model.
This study discusses a smart city's concept from the disparity of definitions, componantes, and dichotomy for spatial strategies, especially for developing countries. Also, the paper provides an overview of the Egyptian model for the smart city. The study aims to present and discuss the Egyptian smart city policy and discover the model's componantes through the case study paper method. The primary question that has been determined is to what extent the NAC considers the successful path for the smart city policy into Egypt. This article is structured as follows. First, this study presents a research methodology for investigating smart cities by determining strategy, method, and data collection method. Second, introducing the conceptual framework for smart cities through definitions, requirements and components, and Spatial development strategies for the smart city. Third, presenting a smart city model for developing countries, which presents a set of developing countries cases. Fourthly, the paper analyzes the Egyptian case for the smart city as a transition country by giving the Egyptian Policy framework proposed and analyzing the pioneer model for smart cities. Finally, it discusses the weaknesses and strengths of the Egyptian smart city experience, followed by conclusion and policy recommendations that could improve Egyptian policy for the smart city approach.
2 RESEARCH GAP
Many studies have dealt with the approach of smart cities and smart urbanization, especially recently in developing countries. Many developing countries in East Asia and the Middle East have focused on the smart city approach as a contemporary urban development policy to meet the challenges and issues of urban management in developing countries. Egypt is one of the developing countries that has gone through transitional stages since 2013 due to political and social transformations and the events of the Arab Spring and as a result of economic reforms in 2016. The state has sought to enter the era of smart cities as an urgent necessity to confront urbanization around the capital region (Greater Cairo Region) in terms of urban management problems. In addition to integrating new projects from fourth-generation cities and fourth-generation universities, unique financial and business centers, and using technology and knowledge in settlement policies urbanization within the new smart cities. This type of city provides a suitable environment for these projects away from the challenges and dilemmas of the existing bloated urbanization.
Therefore, the literature review indicated that many authors and researchers had addressed the idea of smart cities as one of the mega projects implemented by the state or from the point of view of land uses within these cities (Janik et al., 2020; Mora et al., 2019; Tan & Taeihagh, 2020). However, not all of them dealt with the concept of policy, approach, evaluation, and extrapolation of the experience that began in 2014 for smart cities for the Egyptian case. And therefore, to what has grown from our research and our knowledge, none of the studies reviewed the experience of the smart city approach as a development policy for the Egyptian case as one of the developing countries with transitional stages.
Therefore, the current study is unique while presenting the Egyptian experience from the perspective of smart city policy and its mechanisms and the pioneering model of the Egyptian case. To shed light on whether it is appropriate to apply the smart city approach to bring about development booms in the smart cities regions? Therefore, the current study is the first contribution to extrapolating and evaluating the Egyptian experience of smart cities over the past 7 years, highlighting the potentials and capturing strengths and concerns that can be eliminated to create a successful and promising application of the Egyptian experience, which can be applied in similar cases in terms of development stages and characteristics.
3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
The research methodology used in the study is based on strategy identification, research method, and data collection. The research method is made on three stages, as in Figure 1. Firstly, the literature survey provides the main concepts, components, and smart city policy and models requirements. Secondly, focusing on the smart city model for developing countries through some experiences for these countries. Thirdly, the study uses case study research to investigate the Egyptian smart city model. Case-study paper research embraces the experimental investigation of a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life condition and can be exercised to meet four different destinations (1) to supply descriptions; (2) for new theories building; (3) for refining existing theories; and (4) to test the validity of current theories (Mora et al., 2019). The research methodology for this paper suggested focuses interest on the first approach. It aims to describe the smart city model in the Egyptian case, to determine the main componantes for the model, challenge, and the main factors that built the model. This methodology is built on the most relevant studies describing how case study research should be approached (El Ela, 2016), (Bris et al., 2019).
3.1 Research methods
The current study focuses on case-study analysis for the Egyptian context through strategy stages. First, the author has conducted a systematic literature review for the relevant sources to comprehend the smart city's concept from the spatial and urban planning perspective, especially for developing countries. The author uses a systematic literature review using PRISMA Flow Diagram, summarized in Figure 2. Second, the study's primary orientation, the smart city policy for the developing countries and emerging economies, through a review of some of these countries' case studies. The third stage considered the study's essential contribution is the observation and assessment of the Egyptian smart city policy, presenting the pioneer case for the smart city model inside the Egyptian context. Thus, the study follows the narrative policy analysis tool that underlines policy analysis for the case study data using a narrative approach through the policy's documents and practical model (Pratama, 2018; Roe, 1994; van Eeten, 2007).
3.2 Data collection
Data collecting for the current study is based on primary and secondary data. The primary data mining for the Egyptian smart city case study was cognized through the online interview with the technology and systems sector representative in the Administrative Capital for Urban Development Company. Besides, the committee member responsible for framing the smart city model for the NAC in Egypt. Primary data was complemented by the pertinent data published on their websites and reports. Secondary data are based on the planning documents and strategies for the NAC plan with adding implemented and proposed projects from 2015–2021.
4 LITERATURE REVIEW: THE CONCEPT OF SMART CITY
Modern urban development has been inspired by discussions of smart cities, not only in developed countries but also in developing countries. San Diego in the USA has been considered a ‘City of the Future’ by using ICT as its backbone. In Southeast Asia, Singapore has been designed as an ‘intelligent island.’ Based on Information technology IT. From developing regions, India built the Bangalore region, which is considered the Indian silicon valley, and numerous cities and regions that have been designated as intelligent in recent years around the globe (Hollands, 2008). As mentioned in the Barca report, it is mainly to select in each region some cities or sectors that have the ability for innovation and knowledge base. This approach determines policy debate nowadays as “smart specialization.” (Caragliu & Del Bo, 2012). Per se, smart cities consider a policy concept in Europe intended to transfer all knowledge centers into innovation hubs to support European states' socio-economic progress. (Lombardi, Giordano, et al., 2012). This implies that the urban smartness concept is an exciting area for academic research and decision-makers.
Chintagunta et al. 2019 mentioned that ICT played a crucial role in the global economy and business in the fourth industrial revolution (Angelidou, 2014). Hence, smart cities have become the proposed model for modern urban development in the innovation and knowledge era (Yigitcanlar, 2015). Yigitcanlar, 2015, mentioned that this model consists of human capital, infrastructure, social capital, and entrepreneurial capital. Smart cities (SC) literature states that the concept is distinguished from other intelligent or digital cities, emphasizing That the SC concept has been reflected as a strategic tool or path to comprise modern urban production factors to enhance the competitive situation for cities (Caragliu et al., 2011).
4.1 Definitions and conceptual background
According to smart city definitions, Harrison and Donnelly (2011) mention that smart cities are not novel. It may have its radix in the Smart Growth in Bollier, 1998 from the late 1990s, which defended new policies proposed for urban and regional planning (Bholey, 2016). The term “smart” appeared in urban planning in the 1990s in the USA in the “smart growth” Context to face urban agglomeration issues. On the other hand, the term smart city started appearing in 1994; meanwhile, the related research began to grow significantly in 2010 when the EU began using the term “smart” to qualify sustainable urban development projects (Milošević et al., 2019). Many authors see that the smart city concept is based on ICT (Gil-Garcia et al., 2015). Besides, others mentioned that a smart city definition variation is based on the used development approach (Angelidou, 2014; Echebarria et al., 2020). In this sense, the definitions differences are determined based on the humanist approach as in (Caragliu et al., 2011; Hollands, 2008; Kourtit et al., 2012), the technocentric approach as in (Angelidou, 2014; Bibri, 2018; Lombardi, Giordano, et al., 2012), and the collaborative approach as in (Gil-Garcia et al., 2015). Thereby the first smart city definition has been offered by Hall et al. in 2000 “A city that monitors and integrates conditions of all of its critical infrastructures including roads, bridges, tunnels, rails, subways, airports, sea-ports, communications, water, power, even major buildings, can better optimize its resources, plan its preventive maintenance activities, and monitor security aspects while maximizing services to its citizens.” (Echebarria et al., 2020; Manitiu & Pedrini, 2016), which adopted the technocentric and physical infrastructure managed by the intelligent way, developed after that using ICT and knowledge approach (Manitiu & Pedrini, 2016). Meanwhile, Caragliu et al. 2011 have mentioned that SC focal emphasis appears on the ICT role infrastructure. Much research has focused on the human capital and education, social capital, and environmental interest in urban development (Caragliu et al., 2011; Lombardi, Giordano, et al., 2012).
Some literature argued an exciting view that the stakeholders' differences led to different views on smart cities. The technologists may look for smart cities as complicated systems contain multi of layers. Architects and planners may look at it from an urban and spatial planning perspective. Regarding the socialists researchers may look for the smart city as a living place and community life. From a governmental perspective, they prefer to present smart cities from an economic growth perspective and modern city services to effect change and improve urban development indicators (Bholey, 2016). Consequently, among researchers is no global definition for the smart city. Nowadays, scholars' common view focuses on using ICT and innovative aspects of its components, adding IT combined with architecture, infrastructures, and human aspects to address urban development issues (Virtudes et al., 2017).
The concept of smart city policies has been translated through a practical perspective to different terminologies such as; intelligent cities, city information, digital cities, and ubiquitous cities. In this Context, Yigitcanlar, 2015 referred that a smart city based on a comprehensive combination of human capital such as skilled labor force, infrastructure capital such as high-tech infra-facilities, and entrepreneurial capital (Yigitcanlar, 2015); this last model considers an ideal model for the city. On the one hand, Ela (2016) mentioned that the smart city is an inclusive concept that characterizes cities with urban governance, intelligent communication, people, and the environment, leading to smart living. Besides, the city to be a smart one should have smartness in all its components, such as services, water, energy, and so forth. (El Ela, 2016). Baldascino & Mosca, 2016 have provided the smart city concept from twofold to more holistic, increasing traditional network efficiency and services using digital and information technologies. The second one utilizes data processing tools to face urban issues to achieve social, economic, and environmentally sustainable development. Their concept has referred to the smart city concept as associated with multidisciplinary aspects. These aspects are competitiveness in the smart economy, social and human capital in the smart people, the participation in smart governance, ICT and mobility in smart mobility, natural resources in the smart environment, and welfare life in the smart living (Baldascino & Mosca, 2016).
On the other hand, constructing a smart city is a modern and integrated development process, depending on technology innovation, which aims to a novel modification of urban functions (Borsekova et al., 2016). One of these smart urban functions is smart city services. Oktaria et al., 2017 have concluded that smart city services have diverse views by researchers. Meanwhile, smart city services have been discussed from economical, services provider's, and community perspectives. Simultaneously, from a spatial perspective for services, each city in different regions or countries has a variety and concentrates on different types of smart services. European cities focus on Transport and Energy services such as Stockholm, London, Amsterdam, and Barcelona. Meanwhile, American cities focus on transportation, such as Fransisco city, while Seoul, Korea, focuses on public services management and transport (Oktaria et al., 2017). This leads us to conclude that the smart city services targeted depended on a determined strategy for the city besides the objective of establishing or developing a city to be smart.
Another aspect that influences smart urban function is smart city governance. Viale Pereira et al. (2017) referred to differences between smart electronic government and smart governance concepts from a collaboration perspective between actors. Smart interplay with stakeholders is considered a valuable field for smart cities research. Thereby smart governance means that all city stakeholders are invited to participate in decision making and determine needed public services (Viale Pereira et al., 2017). Meanwhile, the literature mentioned that there are two conflicting things related to smart city governance. First, governing a city that is supported smartness; second, and managing the smart city from planning, operation, and implementing perspective for smart city projects (Anthopoulos, 2017).
Anthopoulos, 2017 has referred that several applicable smart city governances differ based on smart city characteristics. Namely, the (1) smart city-owned for the city government, where the government governs the smart city project. (2) The city cooperates with several stakeholders (PPP), where the partners have “shares” of the smart city project. (3) The city is a manager that imposes, standardizes, and supervises a smart city project implemented by stakeholders, while the stakeholders are project owners inside the city. (4) the smart city is wholly owned by a private developer, popularly used for the new smart city from scratch. In this section, it has been explained that the smart city concept is multidisciplinary. It adopted ICT as a core drive to face urban growth issues, develop a better future for its citizens from the smart economy, smart environment, smart mobility, and provide a quality life level. Not only using information technology for its services but also offer innovation ecosystem through innovative universities (Anttila & Jussila, 2018), (Lombardi et al., 2012), (Lukovics & Zuti, 2018), intelligent people, smart governance, with concentration for high-tech industries (Caragliu et al., 2011; Gil-Garcia et al., 2015; Lombardi et al., 2012). The chapter that follows moves on to consider the requirements and components for the smart city.
4.2 Requirements and components
As mentioned above that smart cities are complex systems with several aspects. This part discusses the components and features of the smart city from this holistic perspective. Smart cities combine urbanization issues and sustainable development. At the same time, it has high productivity as it has comparatively highly educated citizens, knowledge-intensive business, oriented planning systems for output, innovative activities, and sustainability initiatives (Kourtit et al., 2012). Thus, it is necessary to provide various indicators and components that can supply an informed picture of smart cities' production process. Lombardini et al. (2012) and Yigitcanlar (2015) have determined some core indicators in evaluating smart cities' performance. Namely, the smart economy, smart employment, human capital, governance, living, and environment.
Meanwhile, the literature refers to seven significant pivots that have been determined by the Singapore-ETH Center for Global Environmental Sustainability, considering the city as an urban metabolism. These pivots are material, energy, water, people's positions, finance, information, density, and space. These factors have been filtered into three main dimensions: (a) The Technology ax based on infrastructures, which seek to improve and modify life and work for the smart city. (b) The Human ax is based on education, people, knowledge, and learning, focusing on the concept of the city of knowledge and learning. (c) The institutional and governance ax, this dimension is significant for collaboration between stakeholders into the smart city (El Ela, 2016).
On the other hand, some core components for the smart city have been determined to analysis as a comprehensive view based on the literature and the practical perspective. Literature has referred that there are components for evaluating the smartness of the city. According to Government components: (1) city administration and management, (2) public services, and (3) administration and management. Society components: (4) governance, engagement, and collaboration, (5) knowledge economy and pro-business environment, and (5) human capital and creativity. Physical environment components: (7) natural environment and ecological sustainability and (8) built environment and city infrastructure. (9) Data and information component and (10) ICT and other technologies. These components have sub-elements that are used to evaluate the smartness of the city (Gil-Garcia et al., 2015).
Lastly, other scholars have pointed to six characteristics of a smart city are called the “smart city wheel” (Alderete, 2020; Virtudes et al., 2017), which consist of Smart economy, Smart people, Smart mobility, Smart Governance, Smart Living, and Smart environment. Therefore, all search efforts have common components for a smart city: data analysis, information, and ICT for smart cities in developed and emerging countries (Viale Pereira et al., 2017). Thus, the valuation's multidimensional requirements are essential (Chang et al., 2018), where smart city systems continuously change. Besides, tangible and intangible assets are working to determine smart city components (Huovila et al., 2019). The next part of the study discusses different policy approaches for developing smart cities from a spatial perspective to present a general view of the features and disadvantages of these spatial approaches.
4.3 Spatial development strategies for the smart city
Angelidou (2014) has discussed the factors, which distinguish policies for smart city development. The study identified four spatial strategic alternatives for smart cities. Firstly, national versus local strategies, where one of the distinguishes among smart city strategic is implementation developmental level, varied between state or nation for the national and city, towns or metropolitan areas for the local level. Regarding the local level strategies, innovation is more effective for creating cities to be smart, where innovation and knowledge are geographically ingrained. Besides, urban issues can be managed locality where it has the size and known tincture.
On the other hand, the local strategies have some disadvantages because of the competition on resources between small and medium-facing metropolitan or megapolis cities. Also, more efforts from the local level align its strategy with complex national policies agenda (Angelidou, 2014). According to the national level strategies, the state is supported by resources and a comprehensive view. The top-level management provides intelligible roles and responsibilities for smart city authorities, encouraging the smart city strategy's effectiveness. From weakness aspect of this type is the lack of benefit from local resources effectually. Simultaneously, the possibility of doubt in the appreciation of opportunities and obstacles is still a result of the national measurement from top-down (Angelidou, 2014). Singapore considers one of the famous cases for the national-level strategy (Arturo et al., 2019; Tay et al., 2018).
Secondly, strategies for new smart cities versus existing which reflect urban development stages. Usually, emerging and developing countries seek to apply New Smart City (NSC) strategies such as Cyberport Hong Kong (China), Songdo International Business District (South Korea), Cyberjaya (Malaysia), and Skolkovo Innovation Center (Russia) (Angelidou, 2014). Besides, NAC (Egypt) (Hussein & Pollock, 2019; Hamza, 2016; Hassanein, 2017), with other 14 new smart cities will mention in the case study part in the rest of the study.
These NSCs are ambitious projects with significant investments for the construction, lands, and high-tech infrastructure, from advantages for these SC strategies that consider an excellent opportunity to deal with SC vision from scratch with the clarity of the aim. Besides, the ability of complete fashionable design determination with high technology integrated infrastructure. The well-being of choosing the SC strategic location which achieves the objectives of the national urban system. The proposed smart city ideal model can apply to other countries' other locations, which ease faster deployment and scale economies (Angelidou, 2014). In contrast, this approach has mentioned concerns where failure is possible due to a disability for providing investments and budget. Another disadvantage is that replicating the ideal model might lead to risks related to success (Angelidou, 2014; Todtling & Trippl, 2005). Conversely, the existing smart city approach considers an opportunity to use current deployment for development factors and build on it to hasten the innovation process.
Thirdly, Soft versus hard infrastructure-placed strategies. This approach determines whether smart city targets use high-tech for city infrastructure or soft infrastructures, such as skilled people and innovative society. The soft infrastructure strategies consider more a complete perspective than others, where they utilize innovation, knowledge, and qualified and professional people (Angelidou, 2014; Baldascino & Mosca, 2016; Caragliu et al., 2011; Joia & Kuhl, 2019). On the other hand, there are concerns about focusing on hard infrastructure-oriented strategies, leading to social disparities and inequalities between the urban network and ICT usage among people and knowledge transfer.
Lastly, the smart city's geographically-based strategies versus economic sector-based. The last one seeks to transform specific economic sectors inside the city to be smart by enhancing smart cities' housing, business, education, and governance using smart cities platforms and programs (Angelidou, 2014; IBM, 2019). In contrast, a smart city is geographically-based strategies that target specific areas or locations such as CBDs, attractive tourism areas (NEOM Company, 2021), and smart villages for R&D (Wikipedia, “Smart Village, Egypt,”, 2001), which are determined to the particular user group. Finally, some literature recently concluded that Smart City research's “dichotomous” pattern needs to be considered when selecting an appropriate Smart City development strategy. These paths suggest that strategic principles are divergent in their nature. They differ between technology-led or holistic systems; top-down or bottom-up approach; mono-dimensional or integrated logic; and double or quadruple-helix model of collaboration (Mora et al., 2019).
Obviously, the divergence comes from the researchers' background; it is also unnecessary to select one smart city development approach. From our perspective, the aim of Smart City development is crucial for the determination of appropriate strategy. According to Mora (2019), most cases using a tech-led approach are top-down strategies using the double helix. On the other hand, the case studies that use a holistic system use a quadruple helix with bottom-up and top-down integrated Intervention. This confidence that selecting smart city strategy development depends on the state, country, or city's development objectives. It is apparent in the smart city model for the Egyptian case study. It uses a holistic strategy with a quadruple helix to develop the urban system to attract knowledge and innovation, discussed later.
5 SMART CITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Smart city studies have become a topic for the research fields with persistence in developing countries, besides Arabian countries in the ME region (Virtudes et al., 2017). The developing countries usually seek effective tools for urban development to face infrastructure inefficiencies, continuous environmental depletion, and deficient governance tools (Fromhold-Eisebith & Eisebith, 2019). These lead to the necessity of understanding the local urban development issues inside every country to set its suitable model. Change et al. (2018) argued that rather than apply previously used models for developed regions, a region's developmental characteristics would be used, with working its urban renovation by knowledge and know-how transfer (Chang et al., 2018). This knowledge and information technology are translated into increased productivity in developed countries, while in developing countries, the influence of ICT is far more worthwhile. Such as facing urban development issues, enhancing people's participation in plans, and climate change issues (Joia & Kuhl, 2019; Viale Pereira et al., 2017).
Some scholars argued that Smart city development directly influences the sustainable economy for developing countries. Many developing countries such as Srilanka, China, India, and Thailand have smart city initiatives contributing to their economy (Yadav et al., 2019). Baldascino and Mosca (2016) refer that smart cities' strategy inside developing countries should be integrated with regional policies to utilize urban capabilities and functionalize regional resources into the smart city. The governments in some emerging countries have launched national aspirant plans as a top-down policy pattern to enhance national-level smart city development initiatives; meanwhile, China and India are considered pioneers (Vu & Hartley, 2018).
The Indian model for smart city programs has been launched in 2014, where the vision has been converted to a determined program with an applicable mission. The smart city strategy contains the development of 100 smart cities (Vu & Hartley, 2018). The government seeks to construct new smart cities autocorrelated for the larger cities or mega metropolitan areas Bholey (2016). Therefore, the Indian model looking at smart cities responds to the development demography and consequent urban development issues, which need the stakeholders joined together alongside policymakers (Bholey, 2016). On the other hand, some Indian case studies have mentioned that the smart city should be discussed as the evolutionary path and productive process. This discussion needs to determine the features' developmental selective locations with the determination of the procedures for achieving goals (Fromhold-Eisebith & Eisebith, 2019).
Given the Chinese model, the government seeks to develop new smart cities with smart city development initiatives (Angelidou, 2014; Vu & Hartley, 2018). The 154 plans have been introduced to construct a smart city by the end of 2013 (Angelidou, 2014; Yao et al., 2020), with developing 311 cities from sub-provincial cities level (Vu & Hartley, 2018). Meanwhile, several cities have been built without real population attractive. These initiatives raise concerns about their target purpose, cost of building, and capability to attract citizens to become sustainable cities (Angelidou, 2014).
Regarding the Indonesia model, the country is one of the Asian countries with significant urban areas growth, although there is a gap between practice and theory. They have started the smart cities' initiatives to improve cities' services and life facilities using ICT (Oktaria et al., 2017). In 2015 the country launched the smart city framework called “Garuda Smart City Framework” GSCF, developed in 2017 for the second version as the development framework for smart cities initiatives. This framework contains seven models: Smart City Model, Measurement, Collaboration, Deployment, Architecture, Standard, and service Canvas (Tay et al., 2018). Later, the Indonesian smart cities model studies focused on administrative techno areas, especially sustainability issues (Pratama, 2018). Pratama (2018) has collected notable reviews in smart city initiatives into three groups: firstly, smart technology aspect, second, focusing on sustainability issues researches, lastly, the governance and human aspect. One of these initiatives' shortcomings is implementation slowly. The cities' governments concentrate on borrowing specific technology from the globe regardless of the cities' needs, features, and characteristics. Not choosing the appropriate city governance model leads to a shortage to achieve the required goals, resulting in different views between researchers and practitioners (Oktaria et al., 2017).
Studies on smart cities for developing countries indicate that motives for smart city development varied between (1) financing capacity of the government, (2) building a robust regulatory environment that fosters the confidence and trust of citizens and investors, (3) technology and infrastructure readiness, (4) human capital, (5) stability in economic development, (6) active participation of citizens, (7) knowledge transfer and involvement from the private sector, and (8) creating a supportive ecosystem that promotes innovation and learning, besides technology development (Tan & Taeihagh, 2020).
Although smart city development approaches are increased in developing countries later, but these programs face some challenges. Tan and Taeihagh (2020) have determined some barriers to smart city development in developing countries. Namely, (1) financing and appropriate budgets issues (Hamza, 2016), (2) shortage of investment in requisite infrastructure, (3) unreadiness exist infrastructure for dealing with technology, (4) multiple authorities involved in the development process in developing countries is a barrier for program implementations, which require different governance model for smart city approach (Anthopoulos, 2017; Hamza, 2016), (5) lack for qualified and skilled human capital, (6) concerns related not all citizens inclusive especially their poor in smart city programs, wherein our point view that the smart city initiatives, especially, which beginning from scratch unnecessary to inclusive all the social layers, where the smart city's aim based on the innovative pattern for urban development which enhances the economic growth overall, and utilize their its development returns for the less social layers in developing areas, (7) Environmental issues, and (8) lack of technical knowledge among citizens especially in smart city strategy for existing cities (Angelidou, 2014).
The smart city model in developing countries has different characteristics and barriers, which means no cliché from developed countries' models is appropriate. Hamza (2016) claims that developing countries require an alternative framework for smart city development, which consists of three layers: First, smart city structure: which consists of environment, infrastructure, resources, services, social systems, and economy. Second, smart city factors: as mentioned above a six smart city dimensions (economy, governance, people, environment, mobility, and living) and extends them with institutions—that contribute to smart city management—and smart infrastructure—that integrates and enhances environmental protection. Lastly, Smart city strategy: which consists of city capacity assessment, objectives' definition, city indicators' identification; city stakeholders' recognition and engagement; strategic formulation; and strategic implementation (Anthopoulos, 2017; Hamza, 2016). So the smart city development has become a critical strategic option (Vu & Hartley, 2018).
Finally, there are some recommendations for any speedily developing or emerging economics to develop a sustainable smart city: It should ensure a good quality of life from a city planning perspective. A smart mobility perspective; should be enhancing a three-pivotal approach varied between improvements in smart public transport, improvements in other motor vehicles' infrastructure (ring roads, bypasses), and Improvements in infrastructure for walking, cycling, and waterways, which enhance the smart sustainable city concept, besides demand management, especially energy demand, through energy-saving incentives (Bhattacharya et al., 2020). Furthermore, the smart city for development model (SC4D) considers a helpful tool for SC in developing countries. This model offers a holistic approach that balances using localized factors and components and ICT (Joia & Kuhl, 2019). It is necessary to use a long-run plan with significant differences between constructing a new smart city through a specific period and managing and maintaining it, which needs continuous improvement and policy revision (Tan & Taeihagh, 2020).
6 SMART CITY POLICY FOR THE EGYPTIAN CASE
Egypt is one of the emerging economies in the MENA region, with potent transformation paths. The country has started over-ambitious plans and projects for all sectors beginning in 2013, accompanied by its political and economic changes and urban and regional development as top of these priorities. The Egyptian urban network is diverse regarding features, disparities, characteristics, and inequalities, which drive different interventions and policies. Urban development faced several challenges in the last three decades, from increasing population, rural pressures on the cities areas, weak economic base for some cities, a disorder of urban roles within the urban network, and regional disparities. The Egyptian population's generality is concentrated in just 7% of the total area (1.01 million Km2) with more than 100 million people. Currently, the housing capacity faces a challenge for development that does not meet the future demand, considering the increasing growth rate. Therefore the current Egyptian administration sought to expand the urban development land. One of these megaprojects is constructing 14 new smart cities, progressing its infrastructure, and supporting a steady investment environment (Hussein & Pollock, 2019). Egypt strategy 2030 has launched in 2015, resulting from review studies and sectoral strategies visions at the international and domestic levels, including the urban plan 2052. Thus, this strategy is considered an integrated development framework in general and sustained development in particular. This strategy has been based on appointed pillars concerning Egyptian society's primary challenges and issues (M. and A. R. Ministry of Planning, 2014). Under the urban development pillar, Egypt has adopted the pattern of establishing new smart cities as one of the strategies for the spatial development of smart cities (Angelidou, 2014), to accommodate the cognitive and technological developments in the modern urban pattern in the Egyptian case and create suitable environments for knowledge, innovation, and business management. Consequently, the following part discusses the conceptual framework for smart city policy and analyzes the pioneer Egyptian model for the smart city.
6.1 The conceptual framework of the policy
According to the systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis, and pilot case studies for smart cities, it is shown that is a lack of smart city studies for the Egyptian context (Janik et al., 2020; Mora et al., 2019; Tan & Taeihagh, 2020). These reviews discussed that the concept of smart cities in Egypt is still limited. Hussein and Pollock (2019) mentioned that the NAC is a project through a set of megaprojects in Egypt to achieve sustainable development goals (Hussein & Pollock, 2019). Another study has discussed the smart city development barriers' perspective and the smart city's strategic path in Egypt as megaprojects (Hamza, 2016). Therefore, the research field needs to address the smart city's Egyptian model in terms of policy.
The country planned to construct 14 new fourth-generation cities adopted on the urban smartness, such as the NAC, New Al Galala City, New Alamein City, New Mansoura City, and a set of other cities that are spread in the entirety of the Egyptian context and are not centered only around the region of Greater Cairo as in Table 1. These cities accommodate the development of urban and economic activities among Egyptian governorates. Besides, these cities are created to attract knowledge and innovation-based economic activities, with urban solutions based on Information technology.
| The economic region | The governorate | New smart citiesa | Innovation components | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4th-generation universities | Government | Industry/business center | Smartness components | Population absorption (million) | Area (thousand acres) | Distance from nearest economic hub (km) | |||
| Greater Cairo Region | Cairo | New Administrative Capital (NAC) | 8 | Governmental district | Center business district | Smart infrastructure - mobility-Governance-services-economy-people-environment | 6.5 | 170 | 35 |
| Cairo | City of Capital Gardens | Smart infrastructure - mobility-services | 2.6 | 33.8 | 40 | ||||
| Qalyobia | New Alobor City | Smart infrastructure - services | 2.9 | 58.91 | 30 | ||||
| Alexandria Region | Alexandria | Al Alamein New City (ANC) | 1 | Governmental district | Center business district | Smart infrastructure - mobility-services-economy-environment-people | 2 | 48.13 | 117 |
| Suze-Canal Region | Port said | East Port Said city-SALAM | Smart infrastructure - services-economy | 0.77 | 22.24 | 25 | |||
| Ismailia | New Ismailia City (NIC) | Smart infrastructure -services | 0.3 | 2.82 | 10 | ||||
| Suez | City and resort of Galala | 2 | Smart infrastructure - mobility-services-environment | __ | 17 | 170 | |||
| Delta Region | Dakahlya | New Mansoura | 1 | Business center | Smart infrastructure - mobility-services | 0.68 | 5.9 | 54 | |
| South-Egypt | Qena | City west of Qena | Smart infrastructure - Services | 0.55 | 9 | 5 | |||
| New valley | New Toshka City | Smart infrastructure | 0.08 | 3 | 481 | ||||
| Central Upper Egypt | Assuit | Nasser city, west of Assiut | Smart infrastructure | 0.34 | 6 | 14 | |||
- a The number of proposed Smart cities in Egypt is 14 Cities, but the table consisted of cities with available data online.
- Note: Own representation, based on Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Development data for the master plans and strategic plans for the cities, which available online http://www.mhuc.gov.eg
The policy aimed to enter the urban smartness era with these new cities as the first stage to transfer the knowledge and apply the model for the existing cities in the second stage. The government formed a national committee based on presidential decision- responsible for the smart city proposed model. This committee is consists of actors from ministries of Defense, Interior Affairs, Communications and Information systems, Housing, Utilities and Urban Development, and Administrative Capital Company for Urban Development (Khalil & Mousa, 2021). The committee's substantial output was the formulation, molding, and composition of the “Egyptian smart city model,” considering the Egyptian context's spatial characteristics and challenges, avoiding the mistakes of smart city initiatives applied in other regions worldwide. Meanwhile, the NAC is considered to be the guide for using this policy. The national strategic plans are to concentrate these cities' development abilities: fourth-generation universities, smart infrastructure, research and development centers, business hub, and transferring the governmental institutions from Cairo to the NAC to become the new Governance and administration Center.
The policy tools represent significant progress for development and achievement rates in the NAC in Eastern Cairo and Al Alamein New city in the western north of Egypt. A set of universities has officially opened in these cities; meanwhile, the E-governance is scheduled to start its work from the NAC by October 2021 (Khalil & Mousa, 2021). On the other side, the political support and the national strategies plan are powerful tools for this policy's success. The next part discusses the NAC as a pioneer model for the Egyptian context's smart city policy.
6.2 The NAC—The pioneer smart city model
The construction of the NAC began in 2015 to be the beginning of the smart cities era and develop a leading political, cultural, knowledge-economic base for the Middle East and North Africa. The NAC is located 35 Km east of Cairo with 170,000 acres which is the equivalent size of Singapore (ACUD, 2017). The NAC location mediates the distance between Cairo and Suez Canal region, as in Figure 3. During the first phase, the target population is about 5 million people (ACUD, 2000). In addition, 50 thousand government employees will be transferred to the new governmental district by the middle of this year, with plans to increase the capacity to 100,000 employees after the first 3 years. The NAC will help strengthen the innovation environments and diversify the country's economic prospects by creating new innovative urban extensions in eastern Cairo, an enabling environment for business and knowledge, new administration, and a government center for the Egyptian state.
According to innovation and universities in the NAC model, Egypt has moved to use the smart city policy for the fourth-generation cities to combine the fourth-generation universities and the regional innovation potential into these cities (MoHUUC, “Ministry of Housing, Utilities, & Urban Communities, 2020). As in Table 1, the NAC contains 40% of 20 universities of Fourth-generation. Besides, on 200 acres, the knowledge city is being built, including the headquarters of international and emerging companies, Misr Informatics University, the Digital Creativity Center, and incubators for emerging companies (ACUD, 2017). These knowledge potentials might to led the NAC to be the regional innovation regime not for the greater Cairo region but also at the national level. The state seeks to attract international branches from high-qualified universities and institutes over the globe into the NAC to be the Knowledge hub for The MENA region. Simultaneously the New Capital has the science and technology gardens, which consider an innovative environment. These regional innovation components from Smart governmental districts, Universities and research centers, high-tech industries, and multi-international companies make the NAC the national innovation center for Egypt.
6.2.1 The development components and proposed model
The NAC consists of residential districts, ministries, diplomatic quarters, concentration for firms and industries knowledge-based, and Central Business District and universities and research centers; most of these are already constructed. The NAC Business district includes a multi-international business hub aimed at businesses specializing in artificial intelligence and innovative technologies. Egypt's NAC is a transformational venture that aims to relieve Greater Cairo's increasing densification and find a new development hub for future generations. China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) is the EPC entrepreneur in part of the project, which consisting of 18 towers including administrative firms, entertainment facilities, resorts, and the tallest tower in Africa (Report, n.d.; Hussein & Pollock, 2019).
The NAC is one of the Fourth-generation cities, which adopted IoT. The first generation was based on the steam revolution, followed by the second wave of cities focused on the Industrial Revolution. It provided comprehensive infrastructure, pursued by the third-era, and featured automated services. However, they are not complementary to each other. Lately, the fourth generation depends on data and information analysis without human factor intervention; meanwhile, “processes management” is pivotal for developing decision-making into fourth-generation cities (Khalil & Mousa, 2021). As for the Egyptian case, most of them are second-generation cities. The main challenge for the smart city policy for NAC from 2015 was what is the appropriate planning and policy besides the components for smart sustainable city framing.
Meanwhile, the literature mentioned that management and governance are considered one of the main barriers to smart city development in developing countries. The city administration and governance have transferred to Administrative Capital Company for Urban Development, as a private multiple ownership company to develop and administrate the NAC. Technology plays a fundamental role in the NAC but not alone, where the comprehensive view for the smart city model consists of technology, education, and community awareness. Therefore the Egyptian smart city model adopted Sustainable cities and communities indicators for city services and quality of life from ISO 37120 and ISO 37122 for sustainable cities (ISO, “Sustainable cities and communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life, 2021; Khalil & Mousa, 2021). The model has been built from three prime pivots: (1) secured smart infrastructure with high investments, (2) Informational and spatial Databases, and (3) The Human component in management and society. The integration of the pivots through a set of codes, the significant one is the smart city code, as in Figure 4. The urban investors and developers are using these codes for the multi-aspects. Namely, the smart infrastructure and its requirements, the smart services managed from the Commander Control Center (CCC) on the city level, the utilities controlled from City Operating Center (COC), and the smart people have been integrated through smart applications. The codes are considered the essential move for human factor and awareness integration into the smart city model. Furthermore, the smart services model distinguishes that the Administrative Capital Company for Urban Development is a proxy between services provider and receiver (Khalil & Mousa, 2021).
As a smart city model, the NAC seeks to achieve two aims; firstly, to gain profits from the land selling, supporting city management. The other is an attractive hub for global investment, especially Over the Top (OTT) companies that invest over 1 billion dollars (Khalil & Mousa, 2021). These OTT investments selected the NAC to be a center in the MENA and Africa. The benefits of these investments are attracted high incomes and new knowledge transfer. The city's financial system adopted proceeds from the sale of lands without government support, facilitating its sustainable development. Besides, the government ministries are among investors in the NAC, where the knowledge city, Sports city, and information city are the mega projects inside the NAC financed by the ministries. The Egyptian government is planned to apply the NCA model for all fourth-generation cities in the second stage, where the application for the existing cities is in the third stage (Khalil & Mousa, 2021). According to the timetable, by the second half of 2021, the Commander Control Center (CCC), the City Operating Center (COC), and the Capital Data Center (CDC) -the unified state data center- will be operated.
6.2.2 The smart services model
The state sought to build the first new smart city by setting technological solutions to provide sustainable services. Therefore, the committee identified a set of mechanisms to implement smart services in the NAC. The smart services have been distinguished by a group of features: achieving competitive advantage by classifying the NAC as a sustainable smart city and realizing optimal strategies to maintain the capital life cycle (ACUD, 2021). The NAC's services aims have varied between rationalizing expenses, Profitability, and achieving a competitive advantage. Table 2 shows that the NAC model adopted different smart services ambitions that provide a sustainable city. As mentioned in the literature, financing and appropriate budget issues are considered one of the main challenges for developing smart cities (Hamza, 2016). Therefore, the smart services model embraced the diverse methods to face financing issues and achieve the city's sustainability concept (ACUD, 2021).
| Competitive advantage | Profitability | Rationalizing expenses |
|---|---|---|
| Smart infrastructure networks | ||
| Smart meters | ||
| Smart lights columns | ||
| Internet and communications | Asset management | |
| Buildings management | Buildings management | |
| Waste management | Waste management | |
| IPTV | ||
| Smart cards | ||
| Smart parking | ||
| Electronic communication services with citizens | ||
| Internet Services (Wi-Fi) in public areas | ||
| Transportation management | ||
- Note: The author, based on the technology and systems sector data in the Administrative Capital for Urban Development Company.
In this context, the NAC's smart city model has consisted of a smart services application model. This model adopted the technology, information-based decision-making, and processes management for the smart services system. As in Figure 5, the model is built on the high-tech infrastructure and networks integrated with the infrastructure. The database integration is the central pillar for the system; meanwhile, the data analysis is serviced by the Commander Control Center and The City Operation Center, which manages the provided smart services for the city. The Administrative Capital for Urban Development Company is a mediator for providing services through the applications that play the role of communication with the citizen.
7 DISCUSSION
- The Egyptian state adopted an approach to the new smart city strategy- one of the smart city's spatial strategies [20]- to activate the smart cities policy into the Egyptian context. This approach aimed to shift to the fourth-generation cities by interlacing urban smartness into cities planning, management, and development, in turn to its regions. Moreover, the Egyptian state is planning to transfer the policy to exists cities in the next stage. In our view, this approach is appropriate for the Egyptian context, especially with the national strategy 2030, which is the holistic development approach. Therefore, the up-down approach policy is consistent with the context's nature, principally at the beginning of policy implementation. The NAC's proposed model is distinguished for applying on the 14 cities from the fourth generation in the Egyptian context. In contrast, the author has some concerns about the possibility of using the same model without taking into account the spatial and geographical dimensions. Besides, worries about not providing the same financial and political support might not achieve other cities' policy objectives.
- From a smart infrastructure perspective, the proposed model for the NAC adopted technology and Information systems-based infrastructure for operating and management; moreover, the networks are managed and solve their issues through processes management. Otherwise, there are concerns about possibly not merging the soft infrastructure into the model from where skilled citizens and knowledge and innovation-based smart society are, focusing only on the networks and operating, which can be judged and evaluated during the operation process.
- The NAC's smart governance presented a role model for managing and operating the city throughout establishing the Administrative Capital for Urban Development Company, a multi-ownership non-governmental company. This entity is responsible for operating and managing the city by working on managing, operating, and developing assets, achieving Profitability, and ensuring the city's sustainability. Therefore, as a city manager, the New Capital company combined governing a city that supports smartness and manages the smart city from planning, operation, forming, and implementing smart city projects (Anthopoulos, 2017).
- From the smart services perspective, this model has the advantage of aims variety from rationalizing Expenses, which seeks sustainability—besides, Profitability to achieve the sustainable funding which one of the obstacles for smart city development in developing countries (Hamza, 2016). Moreover, it aims to gain a competitive advantage that turns out that the new capital is a competitive center in the national level and MENA region. In comparison, the citizens' role was not evident in the model forming as the primary and practical element for the smart services model success. Therefore, making a holistic model combined between services provider and services proxy - the Administrative Capital for Urban Development Company- and the citizens as the receiver of the services is crucial.
- Lastly, the NAC plan consists of the regional innovation components from where universities, academic institutions, knowledge city, and the science and innovation gardens consider the R&D centers. Moreover, smart governance facilitates the cooperation between the universities, and the third dimension for innovation is the business and industry sector. Hence, the NAC's model's innovative components consider a prompt to invigorate the spatial sphere's innovation process. In contrast, some failures might occur if there is no clear innovative policy through the operating procedure, which will be apparent during the completion of the first phase's operation at the end of this year. Therefore, more efforts should be made to determine the research programs and sectors supporting business and industry sector-based innovation and knowledge.
8 CONCLUSION AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
The current study aimed to discuss the smart city concept for developing countries by focusing on the Egyptian model. This study has identified the smart city conceptual framework through the definitions, components, and the smart city's fundamental factors. From spatial strategies for smart cities perspective, this study has generally found differences for smart city policy based on the method used, distinguished by the dichotomy for the objectives and the development approach. The second significant finding was presenting and evaluating the smart city policy for the Egyptian context, which provides the first comprehensive assessment from a policy perspective. The study has been considered the first to investigate the smart city model applied to the NAC, which will be utilized to the other fourth-generation cities as the next stage in the Egyptian context.
The present study's key strength was presenting the Egyptian policy perspective as a new experience for the smart city era. These findings provide insights into whether the ability to apply the model for other Egyptian cities. One of the NAC model's main strengths is determining the particular governance system for managing the smart city model through The New Capital for Urban Development Company. Besides, the smart services model has been distinguished by a technology-based model and determining aspects. The study contributes to our understanding of the smart city's role as the spatial environment for innovation systems in developing countries, which has some evidence from the NAC model.
Our readings refer that the NAC might be the successful path for the smart city model inside the Egyptian context, considering some implementation policy recommendations for other cities. It consists of the following: first, the necessity of focusing on the transfer of knowledge acquired from the NAC's model as a smart city for the fourth generation to the other cities inside the Egyptian context and not transfer the model with its componantes. Second, considering the spatial characteristics and accumulation of local knowledge of every city can implement policies different from the NAC's model in terms of implementation procedures and tools. Third, when implementing the policy or model in other cities, the stages of urbanization for Egyptian cities-which differ from region to other- must be considered, with the necessity of having the elements of urban intelligence in terms of infrastructure, transportation, services, and providing the components of an innovation system. Fourth, the smart city model's social perspective is used to get different policy patterns based on every region's urban smartness social base. Fifth, the smart city policy is by its nature an evolutionary development policy. Therefore, the need to provide financial, political and development support and continuity is paramount in the success of the smart city policy in the Egyptian context. Besides, taking advantage of the shortcomings in the experiences of other developing countries ensures the continuity of the success of policy implementation. Lastly, the need to consider the role of the citizens moving to the NAC from the perspective of the characteristics in forming and operating the city. In turn, it will contribute to deepening our understanding and evaluation of the success of the administrative capital model, and thus will be reflected on the implementation mechanisms in other cities candidates for policy implementation, such as the new city of El Alamein on the Mediterranean, northwest of Egypt.
Although the study has demonstrated that the NAC is a promised model for smart city policy in the Egyptian context through the available data and model documents, it has certain limitations regarding citizens' views moving to the New Capital, the business owners, and urban developers. This study's primary limitation is the data's limitations not documented as references that varied between the unavailable information for publication from the authorities in the current period or the data available but not documented as the references. These limitations might be less severe for future research with the work model Administrative Capital. Several questions remain answered through more investigative research from stakeholders' reactions through the initial operating period. Further research should be undertaken to explore how the innovation system factors work inside the model and urban and regional impacts for the NAC on the National and regional urban system for the Egyptian case.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I wish to thank the Administrative Capital for Urban Development Company, especially the technology and systems sector, for their detailed data about the smart city model of the NAC. Second, I want to thank Wael Mousa, the minister's technical advisor at the Ministry of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Development. And Dr. Mohammed Khalil, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Administrative Capital For Urban Development, provided the data. I want to thank the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education and scientific research (MHESR), Which funded the researcher and provided the scientific scholarship. Thanks to the Tempus Közalapítvány (TPF) for giving the Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship from the Hungarian government. Finally, the author thanks Attila Varga for his help and advice with the paper's development and methodology.
Biography
Mohamed Abouelhassan Ali is assistant lecturer in the Department of Urban Regional Development, Faculty of Urban and Regional Planning (FURP), Cairo University in Egypt and PhD candidate at Doctoral School of Regional Policy and Economics, University of Pécs, Hungary. His expertise includes: Urban and regional development, Regional Innovation policy, Smart city Policy, and regional development-based on knowledge and innovation policy.
Open Research
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
