The Challenges and Barriers for Smart City Investments in the Czech Republic

In recent years, the concept of Smart Cities (SC) is becoming more and more popular not only in Europe, but also in the Czech Republic. There is a general trend for linking innovative technologies with environmentally friendly measures in urban development and planning. In addition to environmental sustainabil-ity aspects (especially better use of resources and reduce emis-sions), the SC also targets social cohesion, competitiveness and quality of life overall. However, the implementation benchmarking of SC projects in-dicates a situation where the implementation of SC concepts in the Czech Republic is less dynamic and not as successful as in compa-rable regions. The paper is one of the outputs of the applied research project Urbis - Smart Cities Investment Platform - CZ Lot 4: Smart Growth, Social Infrastructure and Horizon 2020 AA-010275-001. (11) The purpose of this research was to provide objective expert analysis of the SC sector in the Czech Republic, to determine whether there is a need and demand for other financial resources and instruments for these projects, and to evaluate the feasibility of establishment of new instruments and approaches for SC. The contribution focuses on an analysis-based description of socio-eco-nomic and geographical problems of smart city approaches in the Czech Republic.