Comparing Smart Governance Projects in China: A Contextual Approach

Smart governance has been increasingly gaining momentum to deal with the challenges of fast urbanization in China. However, only limited English literature is available to enhance our understanding of Chinese smart governance. In this chapter, special emphasis is put on our transformative understanding of smart governance in China by identifying the impacts of urban context on smart governance arrangements from an urban planning perspective. As such, we concentrate on smart governance projects in different Chinese cities, foremost based on Chinese literature. We aim to investigate: (1) what smart governance means in Chinese urban planning settings, and (2) how urban context influences the smart governance projects in different Chinese cities. On the basis of an intensive review of Chinese literature on smart governance, we find that smart governance in China varies significantly. Therein, we can identify four types of smart governance in China, including: (1) constructing a pilot area, (2) improving government performance, (3) building trust in government, and (4) encouraging innovation. A comparative exploration of four Chinese projects representing these four types of smart governance shows that the urban context affects the interaction between technology and urban actors. Moreover, it shows that this interaction has a feedback effect on the urban context itself. From this we can conclude that knowledge on the urban context is vital to understand the expected outcomes of intended smart governance arrangements.