Assessing the integration of social sustainability in smart city strategies : Analysis of Belgian cities through a standardised framework

Details

Supervisors

Desmet, Carlos

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

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

Abstract

Today's society faces many challenges. Both environmental and social, these challenges call for new ways of functioning in our society, especially at the urban level. Demographic and urban growth is leading to a rethinking of the use of resources and space in cities. As agents of change, cities are at the center of the challenges and concerns of the 21st century. This master thesis studies the social dimension in the smart city strategies of eight Belgian smart cities, a model increasingly advocated by international institutions such as the UN and the EU to achieve the 2030 SGDs and to address urban sustainability challenges. However, due to excessive enthusiasm around technology and the strong focus on environmental challenges, the social implication of smart cities has been neglected. This study therefore fills this gap and through quantitative and qualitative analysis aims at determine to what extent social sustainability is involved and considered by Belgian cities in their transition to smarter and more sustainable cities. The main conclusion that can be drawn from the literature and practice is that, although city governments are increasingly aware of their leading position in the development of smart, sustainable and inclusive cities, social sustainability and the smart city are recent phenomena that still need to be defined and the lack of currently available measures makes them even more difficult to understand.

HERA Award Sustainable IT 2022