Smart Cities in Russia: Experience, Problems, and Solutions

Abstract

AbstractSmart cities in Russia should bring urban economies to a qualitatively new level of development. The paper aims to assess the degree of implementation of the smart city concept in Russia, identifying key problems in this process and proposing ways to solve them. The authors applied monographic, graphic, and hypothetical research methods. The authors found that the urban digitalization index “IQ of cities” has shown a significant growth rate for 2018–2020. Moscow and cities of the Moscow region are among the steady leaders in this index. Only 209 cities (out of 1117) participated in the national digitalization program. The main reasons hindering the widespread implementation of the smart city concept in Russia are the misunderstanding of the concept of “smart” cities by local officials, their reluctance to implement digitalization of the urban economy, the low degree of digital contacts between agencies at the federal and regional levels, and the insufficient level of financial support. The novelty of the research lies in the authors’ proposal of two alternative options to optimize the financial support for the implementation of the smart city concept in Russia (through permanent or temporary targeted fees and the issue of targeted regional (municipal) bonds).KeywordsIQ of cities indexSmart city conceptSmart citiesDigitalization of the urban economyJEL ClassificationO018R10