Smart City Factors Targeted by Local Governments: Evidence From Belgian Municipalities

Local governments engaged in smart city initiatives must decide which factors or dimensions (environment, governance, etc.) to target to make their territories “smart.” Wrong choices may waste resources and jeopardize the goals behind these initiatives, but there is little evidence to guide this decision. In this article, we propose the use of a regression between an assessment of the “smartness” of urban areas from the same region or country and a set of socio-economic indicators as a proxy for the contextual smart city factors. This approach provides guidelines to managers and policymakers on which smart city factors to target, as shown by our analysis of a representative sample of Belgian municipalities. Results using alternative assessments and indicators point to the importance of social and human capital and quality of life factors. In contrast, governance and participation and transport and ICT are found to play a minor and/or indirect role. This suggests that successful smart city initiatives in Belgium tend to be more people oriented than technologically oriented. The implication that arises for the stakeholders involved is that policies and strategies should pay more heed to areas, such as health, recreation, and education (without neglecting others such as technology, mobility, and citizen engagement).