What are the barriers to the development of Smart Cities? The case of the Regions of Wallonia and Brussels-Capital

Details

Supervisors

De Rongé, Yves

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

Nowadays, cities are facing a considerable increase in its number of inhabitants, and this will only accelerate. Indeed, by 2050, 70% of the global population will live in urban areas, compared to 56% today. In addition to that, current cities are facing societal challenges. Therefore, its future in terms of liveability remains questionable. In the meantime, the United Nations encourages the fulfilment of the eleventh SDG, namely making cities more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable by 2030. As a result of this, one solution seems to be the implementation of Smart Cities, that promise to enable the remediation of current and future issues while providing a good quality of life for citizens. In reaction to this statement, the purpose of this master thesis is to explore why all cities are not smart. In other words, what are the barriers to the development of Smart Cities? Throughout this work, we have reviewed the literature related to the barriers to the development of Smart Cities, explored the practical field via a qualitative research focused on the Regions of Wallonia and Brussels-Capital, and confronted all the information collected. The analysis enabled us to draw several conclusions. On the one hand, most of the barriers depicted in the literature were observed in the practical field that we studied. On the other hand, some barriers were disproved by the interviewees for a specific reason, namely the utopian vision of the Smart City described in the literature. Finally, several additional barriers were raised in the qualitative research and brought relevant information not tackled in the literature.