Smart city concept in the strategic urban planning process. Case study of the city of Belgrade, Serbia

Abstract

European regions and cities intensively apply the Smart City concept, pursuing to maximize the use of contemporary technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) in problem solving when it comes to transport, city logistics, environmental improvement, life quality for their citizens, and many other aspects. This concept has been elaborated through smart city strategies dealing specifically with the topics such as smart governance, smart economy, smart environment, smart living, smart people, and smart mobility, but often also as a part of comprehensive urban development strategies. In the case of the City of Belgrade, the Smart City concept has been introduced through several strategic development documents (e.g. City of Belgrade Development Strategy 2017-2021). The aim of this paper is to identify the future long-term development vision rooted in the Belgrade’s most recent strategic documents, by detecting the parts that lay fertile ground for innovation and entrepreneurial culture, inherent elements of the Smart City model. This approach should reveal the city development domains that are the first to encompass innovations in strategic planning and enable the introduction of the Smart City concept on a larger scale. Having in mind that holistic approaches to urban development and resilience and global knowledge-based platforms can lead to important achievements for the future of the cities, it is also important to make, at this point, some useful links between Belgrade and other comparable and innovative European cities. For the purpose of making comparison between the City of Belgrade and advanced European cities of similar demographic and urban features (e.g. Barcelona, Vienna etc.) topics such as development of transparency in decision-making, or improved stakeholders’ participation and collaboration in service provision, will be used to demonstrate the existing gap between them, as well as to point out the direction on which Belgrade should embark on.