Building Smart Communities in Local Governments

Inclusive and participatory processes to design and build smart city environments has been receiving increasing attention due to the acknowledgement that excessive focus on information and communication technologies (ICT) and services may result in overlooking the role of communities towards creating smarter and more sustainable city. The meaning of “smart community” refers to the community participation in the co-production and innovation of public services for urban living. Via embracing the idea that who directly experiences a problem is keener to develop more innovative solutions, the public sector has started to engage local communities in contributing their innovation to public service delivery. However, smartening public service delivery through the engagement of the community is not a straightforward process and several barriers challenge its success. This paper analyses the critical success and failure factors of smart community projects for public service innovation. For this purpose, we analyse the case study of the municipality to develop a participatory smart community project. Results show that the involved community felt disappointed by the outcomes of the project, which failed in both building a smart community and innovating the public services of the city.