Unveiling the Smart City Concept: Perspectives from an Emerging Market via the Social Representation Theory

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the perception of citizens about the smart city construct since, so far, there is no consensus on what a “smart city” really is. As a result of this, the term has been used in different circumstances and with different names and is associated with several conceptual variants. Thus, the novelty of this work is based on capturing this perception and comparing it with the definition of the smart city found in the scientific literature in order to identify similarities and cognitive gaps and refine the smart city concept—a still open knowledge gap. For this purpose, the Social Representation Theory was used, operationalized by the evocation of words technique. The study was carried out in Brazil, herein considered as a proxy for other emerging markets with regard to smart cities. The results indicated a highly technocentric view on the part of citizens about the smart city concept. In addition, citizens did not realize some dimensions of smart cities that are often addressed in the scientific literature, such as People, Citizen Participation and Culture. Finally, it was noticed that most of the existing scientific literature on the definition of the smart city comes from developed countries rather than the Global South—curiously, where the largest urban agglomerations with the biggest problems to be faced are located. Thus, research on the concept of smart cities in developing countries is necessary, which is one of the motivations for the development of this work.