Urban governance mechanisms to combat the climate crisis: the tale of smart cities

Abstract

Many smart cities claim that their smart urban governance structures have allowed them to enhance their environmental sustainability efforts at the local level and tackle the climate crisis. Numerous studies have created and applied sustainability frameworks to cities. However, there is scarce case study research that assesses these claims of sustainable superiority, and whether smart urban governance mechanisms account for improvements in ecological outcomes over time. This dissertation critically examines extant smart, sustainable city literature, constructs a conceptual and analytical framework that synthesises environmental and ecological justice approaches to help analyse ecological outcomes, and assesses the relationship between four urban governance mechanisms and ecological outcomes in four case studies between 2010 and 2020. ☐ By assessing four case studies – Boston and Washington D.C. in the U.S., and Leeds and Bristol in the UK – light is shed on the four urban governance mechanisms (autonomy, inclusive decision-making, accountability, and citizen participation). In the four case studies, the degrees of autonomy, inclusive decision-making, accountability, and citizen participation are found to be somewhat varied among the four cities, as well as their impacts on ecological outcomes. A high degree of inclusive decision-making is found to be an important piece of smart urban governance structures that enable them to improve ecological outcomes, and there is partial support for a high degree of citizen participation delivering the same results. This research is a step toward providing a closer and fuller examination of urban sustainability. The dissertation’s findings can assist city officials in identifying areas for improvement in urban sustainability and contributes to existing literature by providing a thorough empirical, mixed method analysis of local ecological outcomes in a comparative study that draws on content analysis, existing qualitative and quantitative data, freedom of information requests, and 77 interviews with city officials, non-profit experts, academic-practitioners, and journalists, among others.