Innovative City Research Articles

Creative industries and innovation in Mexican cities

Creative industries represent more than 3% of employment and, if all creative activities are accounted, this figure exceeds 7% of national employment. Additionally, the rate of growth in these sectors is far superior than that of the national economy, their average annual growth almost doubles the whole economy’s growth rate. The aim of this study is to show empirical evidence that the creative activities sector contributes to the reduction of productive inefficiency through innovation, which leads to a productivity growth that improves the competitive situation of firms in cities with greater concentration of talent and creativity. We use the NESTA and UNCTAD methodology to classify creative sectors, then we use a stochastic frontier model to measure the impact that creative industries have on the efficiency, innovation and productivity of Mexican cities. To that end, we studied creative industries in 59 Metropolitan Areas of Mexico, using data from the Economics Census published by the INEGI. Our results show that Research & Development, as well as Software, are the creative sectors that generate strong spillover effects on the rest of the activities in Mexican cities, and lead to higher levels of productive efficiency in all productive sectors of the economy.

The critical factors in the innovation of Chinese urban AI technology: a necessary condition analysis

ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence (AI) is a key technology in the new round of technological revolution and industrial upgrading. In particular, AI plays a core role in promoting high-level economic development and smart transformation of cities. Previous research on urban technology innovation mainly used traditional regression analysis based on sufficiency logic, lacking results from necessity logic. Identifying the necessary conditions (critical factors) is critically important. Necessary conditions are the bottlenecks for the outcomes to occur. Without them, outcomes cannot occur, and other conditions cannot compensate for their absence. Traditional analytical methods cannot reveal the necessity relationships in management phenomena. As a novel approach, Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) can accurately identify necessary conditions, providing us with new and valuable theoretical insights and practical implications. This study introduces NCA into the research of urban technology innovation for the first time, and focuses on AI technology. Our results show that government technology investment, foreign direct investment, financial development, urban economic level, and industrial structure are the critical factors for AI technology innovation in Chinese cities, while transportation infrastructure and human capital are not critical factors.

How do boundary objects influence people-centered smart cities? A systematic literature review

Abstract This study explores the critical role of boundary objects in the context of people-centred smart cities, a new paradigm in urban development that emphasises citizen participation in planning and decision-making. Boundary objects—artefacts, documents, or concepts that facilitate communication and collaboration across different knowledge domains—are increasingly recognized as essential tools in the complex, multi-stakeholder environment of urban governance. Despite extensive research on boundary objects in organizational contexts, their specific application in smart cities remains underexplored. This study addresses this gap by investigating how BOs, particularly collaborative tools and spaces, contribute to innovation, engagement, and knowledge-sharing in people-centred smart cities. Employing a Systematic Literature Review following the PRISMA protocol, this research synthesizes key insights from scholarly articles to comprehensively understand boundary objects' role in urban governance. This study offers a theoretical framework for leveraging boundary objects to enhance the inclusivity and sustainability of smart cities. It suggests avenues for future research, including empirical validation and exploration of boundary objects in diverse geographic and cultural contexts.

The Impact of Innovative City Pilot Policy on Urban Land Green Use Efficiency: A Quasi-Natural Experiment from China

China’s rapid urbanization has spurred significant economic growth, but it has also given rise to challenges such as urban sprawl, ecological degradation, and inefficient land use—issues that impede progress toward green and sustainable development. Land is the spatial foundation for green development, and promoting its green utilization is essential for advancing the high-quality development of urban spaces. As a concrete implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, the National Innovative City Pilot Policy (NICPP) serves as a crucial driver in fostering high-quality development. In this context, the NICPP and green land use can be seen as two complementary components of achieving high-quality development. This study uses panel data from 266 cities across China and applies a difference-in-differences (DID) model to evaluate the effect of the NICPP on urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE), exploring the underlying mechanisms through the lenses of industrial structure and technological innovation. The results indicate that the NICPP significantly and robustly enhances ULGUE. The effect varies geographically and by city type, with the most pronounced benefits observed in eastern cities, non-resource-based cities, and non-old industrial base cities. Additionally, the NICPP contributes to improved comprehensive output benefits during land use activities and reduced pollutant emissions by optimizing industrial structures and enhancing technological innovation capacity, thereby promoting ULGUE. Therefore, in the future, the focus should be on integrating innovation with strategic policies. These findings carry profound implications for urban development in China and provide important lessons for promoting sustainable urban growth on a global scale.

Retraction Note: Examining the Influence of Mayoral Overconfidence on Government Innovation Investment and City Innovation Power: An Environmental Boundary Model Approach

Retraction Note: Examining the Influence of Mayoral Overconfidence on Government Innovation Investment and City Innovation Power: An Environmental Boundary Model Approach

AI-Based Energy Management and Prediction System for Smart Cities

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in smart city concepts in response to a growing demand for more sustainable and efficient urban spaces. In this paper, an in-depth exploration of load forecasting in an innovative city framework is carried out through the building of a software application with a graphical user interface (GUI) and prediction using long short-term memory (LSTM). To fulfill their role in enabling intelligent cities, accurate load forecasting is needed to enable energy management, reduce peak demand, and allow for well-informed decisions and energy distribution optimization. Specifically, in this work, we consider the application of LSTM to load forecasting systems within the context of a smart city. Since LSTM has a high capability in capturing complicated temporal structures, it is indeed an efficient approach to load forecasting, especially considering long-term dependencies. We focus on the strength of LSTM in comparison with the traditional statistical analysis and other machine learning techniques, most notably, LSTM’s ability to handle nonlinear and dynamic load behavior typical in innovative city energy systems. The GUI is the system's front end where the user enters the data, and at this point, we have the city officials, energy managers, and the community people and get their customized load forecast. The discussion of the outcomes of the experiment with the cross-platform GUI application and the improved LSTM forecasting model is given. Based on the evaluation of the model in terms of accuracy and performance, the research is done in an accepted manner to predict the complex load pattern in a smart city environment by proving the efficiency of the LSTM model. The effectiveness of different decisions in various cases is evaluated to consider the influence on decision-making processes and energy optimization; various cases demonstrate how the proposed GUI application is helpful in facilitating better management of energy. This research will, therefore, endeavor to create knowledge in the area of energy management to foster the development of effective intelligent cities.

Synergistic Impacts of Carbon Emission Trading Policy and Innovative City Pilot Policy on Urban Land Green Use Efficiency in China

Reducing the conflict between economic expansion and environmental conservation requires green-based innovation policies. The synergistic impacts of these policies on promoting urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE) remain underexplored. Utilizing panel data from 285 prefecture-level cities in China (2006-2020), we apply the super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) to calculate ULGUE. Employing the staggered difference-in-difference (SDID) model and mediation model, we investigate the synergistic effects of the Carbon Emissions Trading Policy (CETP) and the Innovative City Pilot Policy (ICPP), along with their influencing mechanisms on ULGUE. The results demonstrate that the average ULGUE keeps increasing from 2006 to 2020 and the simultaneous implementation of CETP and ICPP enhances ULGUE, with a more pronounced effect when CETP precedes ICPP. The concurrent implementation of dual policies boosts ULGUE by leveraging technological innovation and industrial structure as mediators. The magnitude of the mediating effect is as follows: green innovation > general innovation > rationalization of industrial structure > advancement of industrial structure. We also observe heterogeneous synergistic impacts of CETP and ICPP on ULGUE, with greater effectiveness in non-resource-based and large-scale cities. These results offer valuable insights for crafting effective policy combinations to advance sustainable development trajectories for China and other developing countries.

Shadow and spillover: The influence of neighboring innovative cities on regional innovation growth

Shadow and spillover: The influence of neighboring innovative cities on regional innovation growth

A Study on the Formation and Determination of Agenda of Innovative City Designation Process Using Herweg's Modified Multiple Streams Model (MSF)

A Study on the Formation and Determination of Agenda of Innovative City Designation Process Using Herweg's Modified Multiple Streams Model (MSF)

Pathways to Urban Green Innovation: Does Extreme Temperature Pose a Barrier?

ABSTRACTTo achieve the goal of “peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality,” China has proposed significant measures to promote green technological innovation. Though abundant research has confirmed the positive impact of green innovation on the environment, whether environmental factors reciprocally influence green innovation remains insufficiently explored. This study delves into the influence of extreme temperatures on urban green innovation, utilizing panel data from 287 prefecture‐level cities in China spanning from 2003 to 2019. Results indicate that extreme temperatures significantly impede the development of urban green innovation, with a series of robustness tests affirming the reliability of this effect. We find that this effect is transmitted through both the “inequality exacerbation effect” and the “industrial production inhibition effect.” In addition, the dampening effect is more pronounced in cities in the eastern part of the country, in smaller cities, and in cities with low river densities. This paper further finds that extreme heat is the main factor that causes extreme temperature to inhibit green innovation in cities. Moreover, extreme temperatures also had a consistent inhibitory effect on the overall innovation capacity of cities.

Augmented Reality for Event Promotion

This article presents the development of an augmented reality (AR) application aimed at promoting events in urban environments. The main goal of the project was to create an immersive experience that enhances user interaction with their surroundings, leveraging AR technology. The application was built using Django Rest Framework (DRF) for backend services and Unity for the AR functionalities and frontend. Key features include user registration and authentication, event viewing, interaction with virtual characters, and feedback on attended events, providing an engaging platform to promote urban events. The development process involved several stages, from requirements analysis and system architecture design to implementation and testing. A series of tests were performed, confirming that the application meets its objectives. These tests highlighted the system’s ability to enhance user interaction with urban environments and demonstrated its potential for commercialization. The results suggest that the AR application contributes to innovation in smart cities, offering a new avenue for promoting events and engaging local communities. Future work will focus on refining the user experience and expanding the app’s functionality to support more complex event scenarios.

MEGA‐REAL ESTATE SPECULATION AND RACIALIZED DISPOSSESSION: Miami's Little Haiti

AbstractThis article contributes to research on racialized dispossession through the lens of popular responses to local/global conjunctures of urban financial speculation. How has a predominantly Black immigrant community, Little Haiti, confronted a surging variant of Miami's history of racialized dispossession—corporate mega‐real estate speculation—since 2008's global financial crisis? I examine Little Haiti's confrontation with the proposed Magic City Innovation District, which is, in fact, no more than a large‐scale, mixed‐use commercial venture. Greater Miami's conjuncture undermined the community's capacity to resist or effectively negotiate with Magic City's partnership in three ways: a real estate hegemonic metropolis devoid of potent allies; the near absence of neighborhood‐resident resistance leadership in a working‐poor immigrant community; and a political fracture within Greater Miami's Haitian collective responses over the politics of patronage and accommodative versus contentious bargaining. By enveloping patronage practices within speculative imaginaries of inclusive, tech‐led neighborhood and metropolitan prosperity, Magic City's partnership and local government reinforced that fracture and politically marginalized both the accommodative and contentious factions. I conclude by considering the dilemma of disenfranchised communities today when confronting racialized speculative intrusions. The article's empirical content draws primarily on my collaborative‐community activism, city commission planning sessions and official documentation.

Effective Government and Regional Technological Innovation: Evidence From 284 Cities in China

ABSTRACTBased on the exogenous shock of incorporating environmental performance into local officials' evaluations, this paper manually collects and collates publicly available data on environmental target constraints (constraints on government environmental indicators for the coming period) from city government work reports as well as panel data from 284 cities in China from 2003 to 2018, and adopts the DID model to explore the impact of local government environmental target constraints on technological innovation after the implementation of the environmental target responsibility system. Our analysis reveals the following key aspects. First, local government environmental target constraints can significantly enhance the quantity of technological innovation, and the conclusion is robust and reliable. Second, the mechanism test shows that local government environmental target constraints can significantly increase the probability of local governments setting soft constraints on economic growth targets, increasing local investment in science and education, and improving the intensity of environmental regulation to promote regional technological innovation. Third, local government environmental target constraints can more effectively promote technological innovation in cities with low fiscal pressure, weak local government competition, and higher level of economic development. Further analysis finds that the autonomous constraint on the environmental target of local government can promote effectively green substantive innovation. This research highlights the crucial role of environmental policy in influencing sustainable technological progress by demonstrating how local government environmental target constraints can act as a stimulus for technological innovation, especially green innovation.

Innovative city construction and urban green total factor productivity

Innovative city construction and urban green total factor productivity

인근 지역 학생들은 왜 지방 사립 C대학을 선택하였나

This study aimed to explore the selection factors influencing local students' choice of local private universities and to offer strategic recommendations for how these institutions can more effectively attract students. A single case study was conducted involving nine students admitted to a local private C University in Gwangju Metropolitan City through their strong performance in the undergraduate comprehensive entrance examination. Data collection and analysis were performed using Ginoshita's modified grounded theory approach. The findings revealed that students' decision to attend Local C University could be interpreted as a strategic action aimed at maximizing economic efficiency and future economic prospects. Notably, the relocation of public institutions specializing in electricity and AI to an innovation city near Gwangju has resulted in the implementation of recruitment policies prioritizing local talent. This employment prospect significantly influenced students' choice of C University. Furthermore, the university's extensive alumni network and positive reputation were identified as factors that enhanced students' perceived competitiveness in the labor market. For rural students, parental advice and support emerged as a critical component of the decision-making process. This reflects the strong family-oriented values characteristic of Asian cultures. Rural students often face substantial economic and psychological challenges when considering enrollment at metropolitan universities, thus making parental experience and local social networks essential sources of practical and realistic guidance. This support aids students in making rational choices that consider long-term economic stability and utility.

Research on the impact of dual pilot projects for low-carbon and innovative cities on carbon emission efficiency

Research on the impact of dual pilot projects for low-carbon and innovative cities on carbon emission efficiency

Development of Simulation Scenarios to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Smart City Systems During Military Conflict

Innovative city systems leverage AI, IoT, and robust communication networks to optimize city operations and enhance urban resilience. Simulations are crucial for evaluating these systems' performance during crises like military conflicts. This report explores simulation methodologies and presents actionable recommendations for urban planners.

Review of Big Data Implementation and Expectations in Smart Cities

With the construction of smart cities advancing, research on big data and smart cities has become crucial for sustainable development. This study seeks to fill gaps in the literature and elucidate the significance of big data and smart city research, offering a comprehensive analysis that aims to foster academic understanding, promote urban development, and drive technological innovation. Using bibliometric methods and Citespace software (6.2.R3), this study comprehensively examines the research landscape from 2015 to 2023, aiming to understand its dynamics. Under the guidance of the United Nations, global research on big data and smart cities is progressing. Using the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection as the data source, an exhaustive visual analysis was conducted, revealing various aspects, including the literature output, journal distribution, geographic study trends, research themes, and collaborative networks of scholars and institutions. This study reveals a downward trend despite research growth from 2015 to 2020, focusing on digital technology, smart city innovations, energy management and environmental applications, data security, and sustainable development. However, biases persist towards technology, information silos, homogenised research, and short-sighted strategies. Research should prioritise effectiveness, applications, diverse fields, and interdisciplinary collaboration to advance smart cities comprehensively. In the post-COVID-19 era, using big data to optimise city management is key to fostering intelligent, green, and humane cities and to exploring efficient mechanisms to address urban development challenges in the new era.

Does the Innovative City Pilot Policy Improve Urban Resilience? Evidence from China

The assessment of the relationship between the innovative city pilot policy (ICPP) and urban resilience is crucial for enhancing cities’ ability to foresee, endure, and recover from various disruptive events. Despite the widespread implementation of the ICPP in China, it remains uncertain if this strategy will contribute to the development of urban resilience. Starting with data collected from 245 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2020, this paper initially evaluates the causal effect of the policy intervention using the difference-in-differences (DID) model and the propensity score matching-difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) method. A multi-dimensional urban resilience measurement index and a mediating effect model were constructed. The empirical results show that (1) the ICPP has a significant effect on urban resilience, which remains in force after a series of robustness tests, such as a placebo test and difference-in-differences machine learning (DML) approach; (2) regional R&D investment, technological talent attraction, green innovation capability enhancement, and information infrastructure development are identified as the mediating variable for the ICPP’s impact on urban resilience dimensions; and (3) heterogeneity study results show that the ICPP has a significantly greater impact on medium-sized cities, attributed to their capacity to enhance the resilience of cities with more growing space. Furthermore, cities with lower economic agglomeration saw a greater increase in urban resilience due to the ICPP. Accordingly, it is recommended to prioritize the allocation of innovative resources to non-coastal regions, cities with low economic agglomeration, and medium-sized cities. This study provides crucial recommendations for the enlargement of the ICPP’s scale and coordinated progress of China’s urban resilience.

The Role of Universities In Fostering Innovation In Post-Industrial Cities

Both the Council of Europe and the European Union play an active role in post-industrial urban transition and renaissance. Post-industrial urban changes have dramatically accentuated a need for sharp and fast adaptations of scientific research, knowledge transfer, and university teaching. The post-industrial context has already been recognized as part of the relevant research and studying context by many European universities, at least to some extent. An excellent example comes from the European University of Cities in Post-Industrial Transition (UNIC), a European Universities alliance. The European academia has commenced a new, innovation-friendly phase of its development. Further research is needed if we wish to answer the question about the real capacity of the European academia for achieving the changes in study programs, teaching methods, scientific research, and knowledge transfer that fit the fast and deep transformation of societal demands.