Speaker
Description
As cities face growing environmental challenges such as climate change and resource depletion, integrating circular principles into urban systems has become crucial for fostering sustainability and optimizing resource management. This imperative is increasingly advanced through the smart city paradigm, wherein technological innovations are leveraged to enhance the efficiency of circular systems. Consequently, the concept of the 'Smart Circular City' emerges, converging technological advancements with circular economy principles. This study aims to examine how urban visions that integrate smart and circular city concepts are formulated and co-developed within the distinct socio-technical-spatial contexts of Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Busan, Republic of Korea. Particular emphasis is placed on urban water management in both cities, assessed through Vision Assessment and Critical Discourse Analysis. By systematically analyzing discourse from primary sources—including official public documents, government websites, forums, and social media—over the past decade, this research argues that the integration of Smart City and Circular City concepts has reinforced its legitimacy and consolidated its position as a dominant urban development rationale.
Despite the growing academic interest in Smart Cities and Circular Cities, the integrated concept of the Smart Circular City remains underexplored and lacks substantial empirical validation due to its relative novelty. Over the past decade, the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea have been at the forefront of technological innovation and the proactive implementation of smart city visions. Amsterdam has emerged as a pioneering case, particularly in advancing socio-technical systems for inclusive smart city governance to enable the progressive deployment of such technological advances and to actively embed circular economy principles in urban planning. Busan, the second-largest city in Korea, has introduced the top-down vision of a 'Smart Water City,' emphasizing the adoption of technologies to align with the Fourth Industrial Revolution while enhancing citizens' quality of life through advanced water management systems. Notably, while Smart City and Circular City concepts have shown divergent trajectories in both countries—shaped by unique socio-political, economic contexts, national identities, and developmental priorities—their integration into a vision has strategically made them complementary. Each framework reinforces the narrative of the other, fortifying its role as a compelling urban development rationale. While both cities exhibit a shared commitment to circularity, significant differences manifest in their governance structures and implementation processes, reflecting their respective socio-technical-spatial configurations.
Vision Assessment in technology assessment (TA) offers a robust analytical tool to unravel how constructed futures—such as visions, scenarios, and strategies—shape transformative processes, including socio-technical arrangements and the evolving knowledge for their changes simultaneously. However, this work argues that visions as socio-epistemic practices can and should be studied in a more multifaceted manner, using a mix of empirical methods. To extend the socio-technical perspective into an analytical framework encompassing socio-technical-spatial dimensions, this research introduces a comprehensive lens for analyzing visions as socio-epistemic practices. By exploring the complex interrelations among technology, society, and space in the formation of Smart Circular Cities, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of urban transformation dynamics. The findings offer valuable perspectives, opening rooms for alternative approaches to shaping Smart Circular futures and fostering more sustainable urban environments.
| Keywords | Smart Cities; Circular Economy; Vision Assessment; Smart Circular Cities |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
