The Smart City and the Creation of Local Public Value

Abstract

The creation of public value in a financially sustainable way, which is the distinctive function of local authorities, is becoming increasingly complex. This is due to many reasons, and most notably to the roles played by different stakeholders, such as citizens, businesses, other public authorities and not-for-profit organizations. To address this difficulty, many local authorities state that they wish to become ‘smart’. A smart city is meant to be actively engaged in improving the quality of life of its citizens and in pursuing sustainable growth, thanks to the wide use of ICT. The aim of this chapter is two-fold. On a theoretical level, it aims at contributing to the definition of smart city and at critically analyzing its role in the creation of public value . On a practical level, it assesses the adoption of the smart city model by a significant number of large and medium-size Italian cities, in order to draw useful recommendations for the future.