Smart cities & citizen discontent: A systematic review of the literature

Abstract

Governments across the world are experimenting with smart city technologies but recent studies suggest that not all citizens support this development. However, a comprehensive understanding of citizen discontent with the smart city is missing. This study systematically reviews academic research addressing citizen discontent with the smart city. Based on a set of 58 articles, two perspectives on citizens' discontent are identified. One perspective focuses on active discontent: citizens are dissatisfied with the technology, democratic process, and societal impact of the smart city and show different types of behavior to express their discontentment. The other perspective emphasizes passive discontent: citizen discontent does not manifest itself due to citizens' lack of awareness and skills and the absence of channels to express their discontentment. Both perspectives on discontent suggest different government responses respectively to overcome citizen discontent through ‘the right technologies’, ‘the right rules’, and ‘the right information’, or to stimulate critical citizenship through ‘the right to smart city education and empowerment’ and the ‘right to participate and challenge’. Based on our findings, a fine-grained understanding of attitudes and behavior, and government actions to address citizen discontent is developed.