The ‘Smart City’ between urban narrative and empty signifier: Hong Kong in focus

Figures & data

Table 1. The dimensions of narratives

Property	Originality	Sincerity	Extension
What is it about?	Degree of endogeneity	Trustworthiness (integrity, benevolence and honesty) of the narrative	Echo beyond policy community
How do we gather information?	Process tracing from 2020–2021 interviews	Triangulation: survey, individual interviews, concordance with focus groups	Evidence from public opinion survey (April 2021 survey)
Why do we inquire?	Discover where the narrative is situated	Appraise consistency and Internal validity. Evaluate as sincerity or a smokescreen?	Address a salient concern in public opinion.
Scoring Criteria	High (4–5): distinctive, endogenous narrative Medium (3): mixed, hybrid narrative Low (1–2): imported from cross-national circulations	High (4–5): a clear concordance between accounts of stakeholders Medium (3): mixed concordance between accounts Low (1–2): an existence of rival discursive coalitions around the domain	High (4–5): clear resonance in public opinion Medium (3): mixed evidence for the sub-field in public acceptability Low (1–2): little support for tenets of narrative
Link to Framework of Somers and Gibson,1994	Time, sequence, and place.	Convincing relationship of parts? Selective appropriation of events?	Coherent causal plot?

Table 2. Conducted interviews summary

No.	Date	Format	Type	Code
1	23 Jul 2020	In person	Private sector	HK01
2	27 Oct 2020	Written reply	Government	HK13
3	27 Oct 2020	Written reply	Government	HK14
4	28 Oct 2020	In person	Government	HK02
5	18 Nov 2020	In person	Private sector	HK04
6	18 Nov 2020	In person	Private sector	HK03
7	25 Nov 2020	In person	Private sector	HK05
8	16 Dec 2020	In person	Private sector	HK07
9	16 Dec 2020	In person	Academia	HK06
10	7 Jan 2021	In person	Private sector	HK08
11	11 Jan 2021	In person	Private sector	HK09
12	3 Feb 2021	In person	NGO	HK12
13	22 Feb 2021	In person	Government	HK16
14	24 Feb 2021	In person	NGO	HK15
15	27 Feb 2021	Zoom	Academia	HK11
16	27 Feb 2021	Zoom	Private sector	HK10
17	Mar 2021	Written reply	NGO	HK19
18	24 Mar 2021	In person	Private sector	HK17
19	19 Apr 2021	Zoom	Private sector	HK18
20	21 Apr 2021	In person	NGO	HK20
21	8 Oct 2021	Zoom	Public sector	HK21
22	11 Oct 2021	Written reply	Government	HK22
23	26 Oct 2021	In person	NGO	HK23
24	2 November 2021	In person	NGO	HK24
25	21 December 2021	In person	Private sector	HK25

Figure 1. The overall world cloud using NVivo.

Table 3. A thematic overview of the interviews, 2020–2021

Theme	Clustered Words (Nvivo)	Couplings (Pearson correlations according to NVivo)
1 SMART	Smart, Private, City, digital, innovation, Blueprint, Industry, Development, challenges, Public, Services	Smart + city Digital +public +services Development + challenges
2 SUSTAINABLE	Successful, Research, World, cities, system, Trust, Area, Companies, Mobility, Living, Environment, Place, China, Product, Company	Cities + Trust Companies + environment China + company
3 E-Governance	Hong Kong, sense, people, sector, policy, Singapore, government, mainland, data, open, things, time, thing, department, technology, information,	Hong + Kong Policy + Singapore Government + mainland Open + data Technology + information
4 SERVICE	Service, Identity, Card	Identity + card
5 FOREIGN	Waste, France	Waste +France

Notes: The word clusters are determined by the NVivo software, though the descriptions are ours. The couplings are also those of NVivo.

Table 4. Definitions of the Smart City

Elements of definition	Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
Contactless service	✓	✓		✓
E-payment	✓	✓	✓	✓
E-vehicle		✓		✓
Internet of Things	✓	✓	✓
Mobile applications	✓		✓
New energy		✓		✓
Online government services	✓		✓	✓
Smart ID card	✓		✓
Solution of traffic jam	✓		✓
Surveillance city for safety		✓	✓

Table 5. The Continuum of Smart City narratives

SCOREPROPERTY	1	2	3		4	5
	Low		Medium			High
Originality	⌂□		◊
Sincerity	□		⌂			◊
Extension			□⌂			◊

Explanations: Smart as Technological city = □; Smart as Sustainable City = ◊; Smart Government = ⌂