Services provided using smart technologies in order to boost their quality, efficiency, and sustainability.
Published in Chapter:
Citizen Perceptions and Support for Smart City Projects: The Case of “Smart Santander”
Héctor San Martín (Universidad de Cantabria, Spain), Mª Mar García-de-los-Salmones (Universidad de Cantabria, Spain), and Ángel Herrero-Crespo (Universidad de Cantabria, Spain)
Copyright: © 2020
|Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-2097-0.ch007
Abstract
The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) applied to territories leads to the phenomenon of “Smart City.” The goal of a smart project is to use technology to manage all of the issues of a city (mobility, heritage, environmental, safety, and health services) in a more sustainable, livable, and efficient way, which will result in improving the citizens' quality of life. To know how the individuals perceive and evaluate these smart initiatives, we surveyed 525 citizens of Santander, a city in Spain that has developed a smart city project. As a result, we found that the citizens who are more familiar with smart cities are more likely to perceive that these types of projects have positive economic, cultural, environmental, and reputational impacts for the towns. This group of citizens also has a more positive attitude toward smart cities, assesses more favorably the brand equity of the smart project under investigation, and shows higher support for it.