Identifying smart city archetypes from the bottom up: A content analysis of municipal plans

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative analysis of 60 municipal smart city plans drawn from countries around the world, with the goal of enumerating the specific policies and programs that are included under the general rubric of “smart city” initiatives. The objective is to identify the combinations of projects that are most often deployed together, and thus to define “archetypes” or “models” in smart city development. We follow an inductive method and conduct content analysis of 60 smart city plans, with each plan coded for the presence or absence of activity in 25 program categories. Cluster analysis identified four different models: an essential services model, smart transportation model, broad spectrum model, and a business ecosystem model.