IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i24p11157-d1547769.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Starting from Scratch: The Articulated Development of a Smart City in Limerick, Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Syed Sundus Raza

    (Department of Economics, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, V94 PH93 Limerick, Ireland)

  • Eoin Reeves

    (Department of Economics, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, V94 PH93 Limerick, Ireland)

Abstract

This paper analyses the situated practice of developing a smart city in Limerick, Ireland. It maps out, at a city scale, how the development of the smart city was planned, organised, and governed, as well as ongoing challenges. It addresses two of the principal gaps in the smart city literature, namely, the scarcity of in-depth case studies based on extensive fieldwork and the shortage of studies on smart city development on brownfield sites. Source material was gathered through desk research and interviews with key stakeholders. Limerick adopted an articulated strategic approach to smart city development. The local government’s dedicated smart city unit played a vital role in planning, managing, and implementing smart city operations. The local government did not centralise the smart city development process. Over time, there has been a gradual shift towards the development of Quadruple Helix collaborations and a balance between top-down and bottom-up approaches. The paper also identifies the challenges that might restrain Limerick’s smart city ambitions. These include financial, budgetary, technological, and human resources challenges. It also identifies the challenge of digital exclusion and the need for greater citizen involvement in smart city development.

Suggested Citation

  • Syed Sundus Raza & Eoin Reeves, 2024. "Starting from Scratch: The Articulated Development of a Smart City in Limerick, Ireland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(24), pages 1-21, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:24:p:11157-:d:1547769
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/11157/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/11157/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel van den Buuse & Willem van Winden & Wieke Schrama, 2021. "Balancing Exploration and Exploitation in Sustainable Urban Innovation: An Ambidexterity Perspective toward Smart Cities," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1-2), pages 175-197, April.
    2. Roman, Mona & Fellnhofer, Katharina, 2022. "Facilitating the participation of civil society in regional planning: Implementing quadruple helix model in Finnish regions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    3. Amna Al-sayed & Faizah Al-shammari & Areej Alshutayri & Nahla Aljojo & Eman Aldhahri & Omar Abouola, 2022. "The Smart City-Line in Saudi Arabia: Issue and Challenges," Postmodern Openings, Editura Lumen, Department of Economics, vol. 13(1Sup1), pages 15-37, March.
    4. Josef Vodák & Dominika Šulyová & Milan Kubina, 2021. "Advanced Technologies and Their Use in Smart City Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-20, May.
    5. Jung In Kim, 2014. "Making cities global: the new city development of Songdo, Yujiapu and Lingang," Planning Perspectives, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 329-356, July.
    6. Tang, Zhiwei & Jayakar, Krishna & Feng, Xiaodong & Zhang, Huiping & Peng, Rachel X., 2019. "Identifying smart city archetypes from the bottom up: A content analysis of municipal plans," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10).
    7. HaeRan Shin & Se Hoon Park & Jung Won Sonn, 2015. "The emergence of a multiscalar growth regime and scalar tension: the politics of urban development in Songdo New City, South Korea," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(6), pages 1618-1638, December.
    8. Oomens, Ivette M.F. & Sadowski, Bert M., 2019. "The importance of internal alignment in smart city initiatives: An ecosystem approach," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 485-500.
    9. Amy K. Glasmeier & Molly Nebiolo, 2016. "Thinking about Smart Cities: The Travels of a Policy Idea that Promises a Great Deal, but So Far Has Delivered Modest Results," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-11, November.
    10. Si Ying Tan & Araz Taeihagh, 2020. "Smart City Governance in Developing Countries: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-29, January.
    11. Ralf-Martin Soe & Luiza Schuch de Azambuja & Kalle Toiskallio & Marko Nieminen & Michael Batty, 2022. "Institutionalising smart city research and innovation: from fuzzy definitions to real-life experiments," Urban Research & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 112-154, January.
    12. Luca Mora & Mark Deakin & Alasdair Reid & Margarita Angelidou, 2019. "How to Overcome the Dichotomous Nature of Smart City Research: Proposed Methodology and Results of a Pilot Study," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 89-128, April.
    13. David E. Mills & Iman Izadgoshasb & Steven G. Pudney, 2021. "Smart City Collaboration: A Review and an Agenda for Establishing Sustainable Collaboration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-16, August.
    14. Anna Nikolaeva & Alan Latham, 2024. "Cities and Smart Technology: The Case of Cycling," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 1-7, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alba Arias & Claudia Pennese & Olatz Grijalba & Yousra Sidqi, 2025. "Application of Living Lab Concept: Where, How and for What Is Being Used in Europe to Support Energy, Social and Environmental Transition," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-25, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:osf:socarx:93ga5_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Clement, Dr. Jessica & Crutzen, Prof. Nathalie, 2021. "How Local Policy Priorities Set the Smart City Agenda," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    3. Jalaluddin Abdul Malek & Seng Boon Lim & Tan Yigitcanlar, 2021. "Social Inclusion Indicators for Building Citizen-Centric Smart Cities: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-29, January.
    4. Karimikia, Hadi & Bradshaw, Robert & Singh, Harminder & Ojo, Adegboyega & Donnellan, Brian & Guerin, Michael, 2022. "An emergent taxonomy of boundary spanning in the smart city context – The case of smart Dublin," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    5. Coletta, Claudio & Heaphy, Liam & Kitchin, Rob, 2017. "From the accidental to articulated smart city: The creation and work of ‘Smart Dublin’," SocArXiv 93ga5, Center for Open Science.
    6. Clement, Jessica & Ruysschaert, Benoit & Crutzen, Nathalie, 2023. "Smart city strategies – A driver for the localization of the sustainable development goals?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    7. De Jong, Martin & Joss, Simon & Taeihagh, Araz, 2024. "Smart cities as spatial manifestations of 21st century capitalism," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    8. Nailing Tian & Wei Wang, 2024. "Innovative Pathways for Collaborative Governance in Technology-Driven Smart Communities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-26, December.
    9. Isara Khanjanasthiti & Kayalvizhi Sundarraj Chandrasekar & Bhishna Bajracharya, 2021. "Making the Gold Coast a Smart City—An Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-18, September.
    10. Mariusz J. Ligarski & Tomasz Owczarek, 2024. "Preparing Quality of Life Surveys Versus Using Information for Sustainable Development: The Example of Polish Cities," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 765-782, July.
    11. Shin, HaeRan & Chae, Sangwon, 2018. "Urbanisation and land use transition in a second-tier city: The emergence of small factories in Gimpo, South Korea," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 534-541.
    12. Sharifah R.S. DAWOOD, 2023. "The Use Of Quadruple Helix Model In Smart Cities Development: Evidence From Bandar Cassia Township In Penang, Malaysia," Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 18(2), pages 78-100, May.
    13. Łukasz Brzeziński & Magdalena Krystyna Wyrwicka, 2022. "Fundamental Directions of the Development of the Smart Cities Concept and Solutions in Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-52, November.
    14. Manuel Alméstar & Sara Romero-Muñoz & Nieves Mestre & Uriel Fogué & Eva Gil & Amanda Masha, 2023. "(Un)Likely Connections between (Un)Likely Actors in the Art/NBS Co-Creation Process: Application of KREBS Cycle of Creativity to the Cyborg Garden Project," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-25, May.
    15. Charles David A. Icasiano & Araz Taeihagh, 2021. "Governance of the Risks of Ridesharing in Southeast Asia: An In-Depth Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-32, June.
    16. Joana Costa & Inês Amorim & João Reis & Nuno Melão, 2023. "User communities: from nice-to-have to must-have," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-35, December.
    17. Ghaemi Asl, Mahdi & Nie, Pu-yan & Charkh, Cyrus, 2024. "Cycles-specific benefits of smart transport for sustainable investing: Global and regional perspectives with different ethical paradigms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    18. Yanzhang Gu & Longying Hu & Hongjin Zhang & Chenxuan Hou, 2021. "Innovation Ecosystem Research: Emerging Trends and Future Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-21, October.
    19. Trencher, Gregory, 2019. "Towards the smart city 2.0: Empirical evidence of using smartness as a tool for tackling social challenges," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 117-128.
    20. Lim Seng BOON & Jalaluddin Abdul MALEK & Mohd Yusof HUSSAIN & Zurinah TAHIR, 2020. "Understanding the trends and characteristics of smart urbanism across continents," Smart Cities and Regional Development (SCRD) Journal, Smart-EDU Hub, Faculty of Public Administration, National University of Political Studies & Public Administration, vol. 4(1), pages 23-35, March.
    21. Francesco Schiavone & Francesco Paolo Appio & Luca Mora & Marcello Risitano, 2020. "The strategic, organizational, and entrepreneurial evolution of smart cities," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 1155-1165, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:24:p:11157-:d:1547769. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.