Case Studies

Smart city initiatives aim to be citizen-centric. However, some governments have adopted a top-down approach that considers citizens simply as users of the services delivered by the city. As part of this view, citizens’ contribution to smart city initiatives is to decide whether to adapt and use the services. In many cities citizens are expected to behave a certain way to contribute to a collective project of building a smarter city. In particular, technological possibilities rather than user needs may lead to the design of services for the smart city. These services are based on commercial technological solutions pushed by the vendors.

On the other hand, by assuming a bottom-up approach the focus is on people and their needs. This means that focus is shifted from the initiatives designed for people to the initiatives designed from people. This is what a movement towards cocreation or coproduction of public services refers to. In public sector coproduction is an enhanced form of participation in which citizens are involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies.