Smart Cities and Governance: Institutional, Fiscal, and Social Challenges for Turkey

Introduction

Decentralization, distribution of fiscal, political and administrative powers and responsibilities from central government to sub-central governments, has become a popular public administration reform especially since the 1980s. A decentralization view advocates the subsidiarity principle for providing public good and services and mainly based on the fiscal federalism literature (Demello, 2004). In this sense local governments, specially city administrations, have gained more importance than other local structures and then they have been the focus of policy makers worldwide. Cities, which are the key elements of the future, have crucial responsibilities in terms of economic, social and environmental. Individuals generally prefer to live in cities through the advantages, specially employment opportunities. However, this circumstance caused rapid urbanization and rapid population growth over time and some city problems have occurred such as waste management, traffic congestions, infrastructure, air pollution etc. depend on these phenomena. Therefore, many cities around the world are developing smart methods in order to eliminate these problems through information and communication technologies (ICTs). On the other hand, the cities define strategies for not only to solve problems but also to have competitive advantages in terms of economic, social and technology against rivals. One of the strategies is “the smart city” initiative which was first used 1990’s and it aims to ensure a livable and sustainable city. Smart city contains six components, namely, smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment and smart living. Then, a smart city can be defined as technological based smart combination of these components to create livable city for inhabitants.

As effects on everything in individual’s life, technology also affects public sector in terms of governance. Individuals can easily communicate with the government through technology. Technology based governance or smart governance contribute individual to monitor and participate in decision-making process in local governments which in turn enhance public sector efficiency. Smart governance, which is the core element of a smart city, requires both smart government and smart people and their interaction. In this context, governments should strive harder to generate smart people and to increase technology adaptation of individuals, for potential gains of smart governance.

As parallel to the world developments, Turkey launched a smart city initiative through publishing 2020-2023 National Smart Cities Strategy and Action Plan. According to plan, smart city is defined as more livable and sustainable cities providing solutions for future problems through stakeholder collaboration and new technology usage and innovative approaches on the basis of data and expertise. Four strategic goals, nine targets and forty actions are produced with the plan. Although this is a very beneficial initiative, there are some institutional, fiscal and social infrastructural challenges especially when focused on the smart governance component of smart city for Turkey. The purpose of this chapter is the examination of the governance related challenges especially institutional, social and fiscal for Turkey on the smart city initiative pathway. In particular, the chapter is structured as follows. First, the smart city theory is reviewed, including conceptual analysis, development process, definition and components; next the smart governance component is defined; and then Turkey related part, focusing on the initiative and content is introduced. Finally, the challenges for Turkey on smart city governance is revealed.