Smart cities for a sustainable Arctic? Introducing critical debate

ABSTRACT

The ‘smart city’ has received growing attention as a concept that could play an essential role in the sustainability of the Arctic. Today, the idea is associated with information and communication technology (ICT) when used in urban areas to improve quality of life, offer more efficient and effective use of cities’ infrastructures, foster social inclusion, and mitigate environmental harm. However, the relationship between smart cities and Arctic sustainability remains ambiguous, especially from perspectives beyond those of techno-optimism. Our aim in this paper is to critically discuss the value of smart city concept for Arctic cities, from an urban dynamic perspective. To this end, this paper reflects on how the sustainability of Arctic cities can be challenged by urban dynamics in metrics for (1) smart city development, (2) politics and bureaucratization, and (3) the role of citizens. The paper has several implications for academia, practitioners, and policymakers: for the former, it advances an alternative debate to explore the complex relations between smart city development and Arctic sustainability; for practitioners and policymakers, it indicates the problematic but often hidden side of smart city development, stressing the need to carefully translate the concept and its promises to fit the unique Arctic context.

KEYWORDS:

• Arctic
• bureaucracy
• citizens involvement
• metrics
• politics
• smart city
• sustainability
• urban dynamics

Introduction

The Arctic is receiving growing attention among states, businesses, and policymakers as a region where global challenges and opportunities concerning sustainability must be addressed (Gad et al., 2017; NATO, 2017; Petrov, 2022). Because the region abounds with rich natural resources (e.g. oil, gas, minerals), sustainability tourism, wind and hydropower energy production, shipping, fish and seafood resources, information and communication technology (ICT), and technological innovation potential, it has arguably become vital in larger discussions around sustainable development (Sköld et al., 2018). With such wide-ranging potential, there is a general assumption that the Arctic is a self-standing region with stable urban development, high well-being, and resilient cities and local communities (AMAP, 2017), as well as the potential to secure long-term global sustainability (Petrov et al., 2017).

However, mounting research reveals that there are also challenges related to securing the Arctic’s sustainability. For example, some socioeconomic sustainability reports demonstrate that most Arctic territories have mixed indicators of steady economic growth with depopulation among the younger generation (BIN, 2019; Stephen, 2018). Moreover, traditional local industries in northern regions lack activity in innovation, leading to a decline without substitution by future-oriented service industries (BIN, 2019). The Arctic is also characterized by significant geopolitical interests and severe challenges regarding socioeconomic aspects of life (Mineev et al., 2020). In terms of environmental sustainability, research has noted the limited attention paid to the future demands of Arctic nature and that when it has been addressed, it has been with the dominant logic of global extraction and consumerism (AMAP, 2017). The long-term sustainability of the Arctic can thus be questioned from social, economic, and environmental dimensions.

The role of smart cities in tackling the opportunities mentioned above, as well as the challenges to sustainability in the Arctic, have become increasingly discussed in the literature (Aleksandrov et al., 2023; Dybtsyna & Aleksandrov, 2020; Raspotnik et al., 2020; Raspotnik & Herrmann, 2021; Rizzo et al., 2024; Spicer et al., 2021). Although many definitions have been offered for this concept (Meijer & Bolívar, 2016), the smart city is usually associated with the application of ICT and technological advancements in urban areas to enhance the quality of life, ensure more efficient and effective use of cities’ infrastructures and resources, foster social inclusion, and mitigate environmental harm (Mora & Deakin, 2019). In this regard, many scholars illustrated the benefits of ‘smartness’ by emphasizing how ICT can be utilized to re-engineer cities’ infrastructures, making them safer, more resilient, transparent, environmentally friendly, socially oriented, efficient, effective, and sustainable (e.g. Giffinger et al., 2007; Greenfield, 2013; Kourtit et al., 2012; UN-Habitat, 2022; Valdez et al., 2018; Winters, 2011). Similarly, previous Arctic studies have addressed a key aspect of smart and sustainable city development in the Arctic, namely technology-centric optimism, with practical realizations of this ideology that include attracting people to the region, public innovations, green growth, and social and economic benefits for the region (e.g. Berman & Orttung, 2020; Dybbroe et al., 2010; Heleniak & Bogoyavlenskiy, 2015; Hirvonen-Kantola et al., 2015; Kuklina et al., 2021; Orttung, 2020; Raspotnik & Herrmann, 2021; Suter et al., 2017). Thus, smart cities are touted as ‘a crucial step toward a sustainable future in the circumpolar north, contributing to a ‘smarter’ approach to economic, social, and environmental development’ (Raspotnik et al., 2020, p. 64).

Yet, in line with the general critique of Arctic studies (Knecht & Laubenstein, 2020), although research on smart and sustainable cities in the Arctic is growing, it remains in its infancy and as such is undertheorized. Previous studies have suggested some measures and normative assessments for Arctic cities, but have tended to focus less on what practically happens to demonstrate Arctic cities’ complexities and sustainability (Graybill & Petrov, 2020; Orttung, 2020; Petrov et al., 2016, 2017). Such investigation may inform a more constructive and critical discussion about sustainability in the Arctic (Schaffner, 2020). This, in turn, would require advancing alternative questions and reassessing the taken-for-granted meaning, processes, and straightforward relations between smart city development and Arctic sustainability.

Motivated by that concern, this paper suggests questioning the development of the smart city concept and related technology-centric optimism in the Arctic from an urban dynamics perspective, as outlined within international interdisciplinary literature (e.g. Grossi et al., 2020; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016). The literature recommends shifting away from the general discussions on technological development for cities, and toward how the smart city concept unfolds under multiple actors, goals, interests, and values involved in city organizing. However, to our knowledge, such a perspective is currently ignored within existing research on the Arctic. Thus, this paper aims to provoke more critical discussion on the value of the smart city concept for the Arctic.

Accordingly, we apply the framework developed by Grossi et al. (2020) for examining smart city urban dynamics with three interrelated dimensions to reflect how the sustainability of Arctic cities can be challenged by urban dynamics in metrics for (1) smart city development, (2) politics and the bureaucratization of smart city initiatives, and (3) the role of citizens. We address each of these elements through the paper’s structure and arguments in two steps. First, we delve into critical knowledge of each dimension appearing in international literature. Second, we reflect on knowledge generated from smart city research projects related to the Arctic context (EduSmart project database, 2023; SmartNorth project database, 2020; SmartNorth UArctic thematic network database, 2024). This includes documents, previous publications, master’s thesis databases, and data from project working papers. Thus, in terms of methodology, our paper combines a review and analysis of the literature with some examples of Arctic smart city development based on secondary data.

The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows. In the next section, we briefly review the literature on the smart city concept and introduce the urban dynamics framework, which reflects assumptions for Arctic cities’ sustainability through three specific areas. First, we discuss the role of metrics in smart city development and the challenges in the Arctic region; we then examine the possible tensions connected to politics and bureaucratization before reflecting on the role of citizens and the issues connected with their frequent exclusion from discussions of Arctic smart cities. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing the current pitfalls of regarding smart cities as a panacea for a sustainable Arctic and suggests further examination of the complex relations between this concept and the sustainability of this region.

Theoretical orientation: smart city urban dynamics perspective

Originating in the early 1990s as a part of metropolitan ICT environment formation (Mahizhnan, 1999), the smart city concept has become the subject of multidisciplinary academic debates in the last two decades, attracting growing attention from policymakers, practitioners, and industry actors. More recently, these debates have been moving away from the fields of computer and data science, architecture, and engineering (for an overview, see Mora et al., 2021) and toward public administration and management, political and organization science, and urban and future studies (e.g. Angelidou, 2014; Anthopoulos, 2015; Camero & Alba, 2019; Caragliu & Del Bo, 2019; Cardullo & Kitchin, 2019; Hollands, 2020; Meijer, 2018; Mora et al., 2017; Vanolo, 2014).

Several perspectives have progressed from a more technocentric view toward a more human-focused and holistic one (Meijer & Bolívar, 2016; Mora et al., 2017). The core idea of the technocentric perspective relates to connecting the smart city agenda with technology and ICT studies and techno-optimistically observing ways to fix urban problems via technology (Greenfield, 2013; Hollands, 2008; Valdez et al., 2018). Much research on technology and ICT has been devoted to the evolution of these sectors within the scope of smart cities and how their development can address cities’ economic sustainability (Angelidou, 2014; Anthopoulos, 2015; Camero & Alba, 2019; Caragliu & Del Bo, 2019; Hollands, 2020; Mora et al., 2017). By contrast, the human-centric perspective encourages shifting the focus away from technology toward human capital and resources, thereby emphasizing the formation of a smart, educated citizenry (Winters, 2011). This focus has progressed into a more holistic perspective that addresses citizens as active users of city infrastructures and co-creators (Caragliu et al., 2011; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016; Mora & Deakin, 2019). The core values attached to smart cities have thus included making life richer and better for diverse city actors, including citizens (Lee et al., 2013), by generating material and post-material outcomes (Kourtit et al., 2012) while providing social sustainability, open government formation, and environment sustainability (Mora et al., 2021).

In light of discussions around sustainability, the smart city concept has gathered increasing momentum worldwide over the last decade (Angelidou, 2014; Bibri & Krogstie, 2017; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016; OECD, 2018; Sodiq et al., 2019; UN, 2017; UN-Habitat, 2022; Valdez et al., 2018). Nevertheless, most research discussions do not cover the extent to which the smart city idea differentiates between sustainable development and urban sustainability (Angelidou et al., 2017; Bibri & Krogstie, 2017; Sodiq et al., 2019; Tomor et al., 2019). Instead, the agenda is most often perceived as overarching (Mora et al., 2021; Shamsuzzoha et al., 2021), and due to ambiguity, a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between smart cities and sustainability is still lacking (Meijer & Bolívar, 2016; Tomor et al., 2019).

As such, there is a rising call to critically reflect on smart cities from alternative perspectives in addition to technology-centric optimism, as it can generate both benefits and adverse social effects. Such perspectives are proposed to help understand how technology is addressed when we put it into the complex world of urban practice with multiple actors, goals, interests, and values involved in city organizing and development (Meijer & Bolívar, 2016). In that way, alternative perspectives can reassess the taken-for-granted meaning and processes behind smart cities and sustainable development (Cummings et al., 2018) and to better understand both the opportunities and shortcomings behind the smart city agenda.

To accomplish this within the Arctic context, we adapt the urban dynamics framework suggested by Grossi et al. (2020). Based on a comprehensive overview of the interdisciplinary literature, Grossi and colleagues have followed Meijer and Bolívar’s (2016) exhortation to progress beyond simplistic technological determinism to focus on smart city development as a socio-technological practice that transforms existing governmental structures. Combining ideas from management, public administration, accounting, and urban governance literature, Grossi et al. (2020) suggest that researchers approach urban dynamics as a complex set of several interrelated building blocks to consider within smart cities in different contexts.

First, originally relating to the understanding of standards and technological measurement of cities, Grossi et al. (2020) stress the generally marginalized role ascribed to understanding how cities are measured and represented by various metrics (Lapsley et al., 2010). This calls particular attention to urban auditing, where ‘measuring, quantifying and visualizing urban dynamics are seen as the basis for more rational urban governance and management, and for more transparent forms of accountability’ (Grossi et al., 2020, p. 634). Such investigation becomes important as metrics become representations and visualizations of city development and engines for city governance and future imaginaries (Bourmistrov & Mouritsen, 2022). In this regard, we consider the essential role of various metrics for smart city development in different contexts, including the Arctic.

Second, initially referring to understanding the complexity of actors and key users, their interests, and rules in smart city development, Grossi et al. (2020) stress a deeper examination of how ‘new technologies result from power plays and tend to reinforce positions of power’ and how existing cities’ government structures and rules play out in practice (p. 838). As such, it would be naïve to think that smart city-related initiatives are solely about technology and ICT solutions for unified needs – in fact, they are often about actors’ conflicting interests that should be considered, including those of industry, politicians, citizens, and city public managers (Grossi & Pianezzi, 2017). The latter group, as representatives of city bureaucratic routines, become the first interpreters of the interests at play, moving the ideas into real city regulations and actions (Meijer & Bolívar, 2016). We thus consider the complex process of politics and bureaucratization in smart cities as essential dimensions to study in different contexts, including the Arctic.

Third, highlighting the value of citizens’ participation in the smart city agenda, Grossi et al. (2020) call for a deeper investigation of opportunities and challenges connected to making citizens co-creators of cities. Citizens can be involved through various engagement mechanisms of decision-making in city governance, including strategic, urban, and financial planning (e.g. Fung, 2015). In this regard, smart cities can introduce new configurations of stakeholders and new attempts to make cities inclusive and relevant to residents (Karvonen et al., 2019). Conversely, it is important to consider the general lessons of ‘underwater rocks’ concerning citizen involvement, where citizens are often absent or merely symbolically engaged in decision-making (Kitchin, 2014). We thus consider the collaboration of public managers with citizens, and (or) citizens’ exclusion from discussions about smart cities, as an essential dimension to study in different contexts, including the Arctic.

Altogether, these dimensions of urban dynamics complement the development of a rich understanding of smart cities’ opportunities and shortcomings in different contexts (Grossi et al., 2020). Framed by these three dimensions, in the following section we provoke more critical examination of the smart city concept’s value for Arctic cities and its sustainability. We do so by first unpacking each dimension in detail from international literature and then reflecting on current smart city development and related sustainability in the Arctic.

Metrics in smart city development and their implications for Arctic cities’ sustainability

There is a growing interest in metrics as the starting mechanism for understanding smart city dynamics because they become information policy devices that can define, mediate, and govern cities’ development and future (Argento et al., 2020; Mora et al., 2017). Moreover, they can increase accountability, efficiency, and good governance (Appio et al., 2019; Shore & Wright, 2015). However, questions and ambiguities remain when tracing what various smart city metrics, such as rankings and internal performance measures, actually do in cities’ individual contexts.

City rankings relate to comparative rating systems based on the calculations where two or more cities are measured, compared, and ranked by various characteristics, such as economic, social, environmental, and geographic (Giffinger et al., 2010). In other words, by quantitatively comparing different cities’ quality and efficiency, rankings reflect and describe the status of cities (e.g. as flagships) and set their ‘best practices’ in the global urban hierarchy (Bourmistrov & Mouritsen, 2022). Moreover, they also prescribe and shape urban visions (Elgert, 2018), becoming an important guide, or even a formula, for policymakers and practitioners to follow and marketize cities (e.g. Giffinger & Haindlmaier, 2010; Vanolo, 2014).

However, some recent studies have challenged the decisive role of rankings in measuring and managing smart and sustainable cities, stressing their methodological limits and lack of transparency. Giffinger and Haindlmaier (2010) point out that regardless of a city’s complexity and conditions, its presentation will likely be reduced to a single number and position. In other words, city rankings fail to account for complex measures’ causalities and lack openness in design, data collection, weighting, and aggregation (Saez et al., 2020). This results in generalization, whereby rankings ignore cities’ unique structures, goals, conditions, and activities for smart development (Vanolo, 2014). Moreover, city rankings may often be superficial and fall short of creating lasting, meaningful, structural change toward sustainability, resulting in a ‘low-hanging fruit’ strategy whereby cities pursue the ‘paths of least resistance’, preferring quick, short-term fixes (Elgert, 2018). Similarly, their methodologies do not generate enough critical reflection and dialogue with divergent stakeholder groups, resulting in a narrow imaginary of ‘smartness’ guided by technology and business interests (Aleksandrov, Dybtsyna, et al., 2022).

Similar critical concerns surround internal city metrics (e.g. performance measures, indicators, dashboards) intended to help city officers and politicians manage smart city development efficiently, effectively, and sustainably (Argento et al., 2020). In practice, these metrics often fail to reflect the complexity of smart cities with their multiple activities, interests, and trade-offs (Brorström et al., 2018; Karppi & Vakkuri, 2020). This can lead to too much data being produced, creating an ambiguity of goals, administrative burdens, and even total paralysis of smart city activities (Argento et al., 2020). In a broader sense, this creates the performativity effect where only what gets measured gets done, resulting in the neglect of other essential sustainability areas (White & Burger, 2022).

Therefore, the existing research on metrics in smart and sustainable cities places critical focus on how metrics function in cities’ individual contexts. However, what do such metrics mean for Arctic cities? There is increasing research on metrics for the concepts of smart cities and sustainability, both of which are often interlinked in the Arctic.

Emphasizing the growing interest in Arctic smart cities, several studies have applied the ISO standard to evaluate Arctic cities in northern Norway, Canada, and Alaska (Raspotnik et al., 2020; Raspotnik & Herrmann, 2021). They show that ISO categorization is limited in evaluating smart city efficiency and effectiveness in the Arctic, even though smartness and sustainability are highly intersected. Similar concerns are evident in the context of Arctic cities’ sustainability discussions in different countries. For example, Petrov (2020) suggests that the ISO framework does not work in the specific conditions of the Arctic due to the lack of consideration for local dimensions and space for empowerment. Similarly, several scholars have posited that ISO metrics do not give a sense of city life in the Arctic and, as such, warrant revision (DiNapoli & Jull, 2020; Orttung, 2020). Moreover, examples from the Russian Arctic demonstrate the shortfall pursuit of sustainability measures in cities and data availability (Orttung et al., 2021). Broadly, such research raises concerns about tensions between global and local Arctic sustainability agendas and the need to create unique integrated metrics for the Arctic (Graybill & Petrov, 2020; Petrov et al., 2016, 2017; Petrov & Vlasova, 2021).

The more recent initiative of the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) development has also warranted such considerations in the Norwegian Arctic, where several cities joined the U4SSC initiative and developed a set of international key performance indicators (KPIs): Bodø (in 2020), Tromsø (in 2022), and Narvik (also in 2022). The idea was to establish the criteria to evaluate ICT contributions in making cities smarter and more sustainable, as well as to provide the means for self-assessments toward economic, environmental, societal, and cultural dimensions (U4SSC, 2020). It also allowed for testing and verifying the U4SSC indicators’ applicability in the Arctic city context. However, the results have indicated that although developed metrics showcased general fulfillment of targets between 66 and 95% for different dimensions, the U4SSC methodology has ignored cities’ regional and local specifics, demands, and controversies (Svartefoss et al., 2022). As Svartefoss et al. (2022) note, a relatively simple, straightforward, and noncontroversial implementation of metrics could quickly boost cities’ visibilities in the short run but fail to develop policies and programs with a lasting and meaningful change toward urban sustainability in the Arctic context.

Similar concerns apply to internal metrics creation in Arctic cities where the rhetoric of the local integrative approach is problematic in practice. Studying the existing smart city initiatives in Oulu (northern Finland), Aleksandrov, Hirvonen-Kantola, et al. (2022) show that performance measures do little to facilitate mediation across actors’ activities and interests. The same performance measures have different meanings for various actors and have questioned common language creation, competence, transparency, and knowledge exchange across city actors and the global smart city agenda. Therefore, instead of being locally oriented and integrative, measures can fragment joint city development and further expand the distance between the metrics’ information supply and the local Arctic demands.

Politics and bureaucratization in smart cities and their implications for Arctic cities’ sustainability

We observe a disproportionate gap between cities calling themselves ‘smart’ within world rankings and the reality of those cities (Hollands, 2020). One might hypothesize that this is because so much formation and implementation of smart cities happens not only as a poorly rational and technical process but also, significantly, as a political and bureaucratic process (Grossi et al., 2020). In the context of city organizing, politics generally refers to the art or craft of decision-making and governing the process in city groups, tending to take divergent, conflicting, and power-imbalanced points of view within the city (Yates, 1977). Within the smart city context, the presence of politics introduces questions regarding the involved parties, their interests, power dynamics, the ideologies they prescribe, and their impact on urban sustainability (Meijer, 2018; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016).

Vanolo (2014) suggests that the smart city, as an ambiguous concept, offers a new way of organizing, imagining, and managing cities, supporting existing city government agendas – and, thus, that its assessment and implications for urban sustainability will be influenced by different power geometries as well as how the concept is ‘assembled and filled with the meanings by policymakers and supported with specific policies’ (p. 884). An illustrative example is the initiative of the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (European Commission, 2022), which aimed to boost support for, and the development of, smart city innovations via EU policies and funding (Caragliu et al., 2013; Komninos et al., 2013). However, the initiative has produced a situation where, beneath the pressure of EU funding, countries become involved in constructing a new – but monolithic – ideology behind smartness (Hollands, 2020). Within this context, public–private partnerships became an established practice (Pianezzi et al., 2021; Rodríguez-Bolívar, 2015).

Generally, public–private partnerships in smart cities utilize private finance, expertise, and the interest of private entities to collaboratively fund, build, and operate public infrastructure and technological solutions, thereby benefiting both sectors and aiming to contribute to sustainable urbanization (OECD, 2018; Pianezzi et al., 2021; UN-Habitat, 2022). However, it creates a set of problematic relationships between the public and private actors, including often conflicting goals and values (Meijer, 2018; Mora et al., 2017). Under the pressure of competition for funding, there is a serious threat that private actors would dominate processes without proper critical discussions on the values of citizens and the public sector (Pianezzi et al., 2021). Accordingly, it is highly likely that we create and over-celebrate opportunities offered by technology, which have ‘plenty of high-tech symbols, but without any visible human presence’ (Vanolo, 2014, p. 886).

Similar critical concerns apply to city authorities that launch initiatives to implement smart solutions without considering their relevance to the city’s existing problems. Indeed, in many cases, smart city initiatives become a part of the marketization of the city and ‘must-have’ development (Hollands, 2015); or, while labeling things ‘smart’ (Valdez et al., 2018), such authorities seek legitimacy from the central government by pursuing funding opportunities for existing city projects. More broadly, this practice leads to smart cities becoming a part of neoliberal ideology (Brenner & Theodore, 2002), wherein authorities create utopian visions that can distract from the actual problems faced in urban areas (Grossi & Pianezzi, 2017).

Moreover, smart city initiatives are always implemented within existing routines of city organizing, a process known as ‘bureaucratization’ (Meijer & Bolívar, 2016). These include focusing on official jurisdictions, rationality, subordination, hierarchy, expert knowledge, and law (Kornberger et al., 2017). One might say that such principles contradict the core ideas of a smart city, with its sustainable urbanization promises (Mora & Deakin, 2019), by downsizing it in the pursuit of efficiency, austerity, and financial control, as well as the bureaucratic silo-based interface among actors (Karppi & Vakkuri, 2020; Pansera et al., 2022).

The presented concerns of smart city politics and bureaucratization become increasingly evident within the Arctic cities’ context as well. Recent studies demonstrate that centrally driven policies and related funding arrangements often influence smart city development, such as Horizon 2020 grant initiatives in the EU (e.g. Dybtsyna & Aleksandrov, 2020; Raspotnik et al., 2020) and smart city grant competition initiatives in North America (Raspotnik & Herrmann, 2021). In that sense, studies observe the specific ‘smartification’ in the Arctic, where only one vision dominates across the Arctic states. For example, Rizzo et al. (2024) demonstrate that smart city thinking in the Swedish Arctic is more connected with the resource extraction industry than with dealing with broader climate and societal challenges. Such developments also can produce a smart city governance paradox in the Arctic, where there is tension between national, externally driven visions and what is locally demanded (Aleksandrov et al., 2023). Such findings correlate with a more general discussion of power relations and marginalization in Arctic sustainability. In particular, sustainability can become a political concept that frames Arctic policies and strategies without real consideration of Arctic identities (Gad et al., 2017; Graybill & Petrov, 2020; Hemmersam, 2021), Indigenous Peoples (Degai & Petrov, 2021; Garbis et al., 2023; Petrov et al., 2017), nature (Finger, 2022) and potential tensions (Finger & Reking, 2022). In essence, although much is said about the importance of local input in smart and sustainable cities’ development, external players tend to make the decisions, resulting in a one-sided conversation dominated by those outside the Arctic. This poses a significant challenge to the creation of sustainable urban environments.

Similar concerns also apply to bureaucratic challenges of smart city development in the Arctic. In particular, it is evident that despite the rhetoric of cooperative thinking with a human-centric agenda (Raspotnik & Herrmann, 2021), how a smart city is implemented depends greatly on key budget orientation, vertical accountability, and silo-based bureaucratic routines (Aleksandrov, Hirvonen-Kantola, et al., 2022). Similarly, some experimentation with specific thematic areas, such as smart mobility in northern Norway, also reveals barriers in regulation and in the mentality of authorities who shape and give a sense of new solutions within existing administrative boundaries that are fragmented in visions (Delaviz, 2023; Kolesnikova, 2023; Svartefoss et al., 2022). However, Khodachek et al. (2022) suggest that in the Russian context, ‘bureaucracy deals with smart city creatively: it retains the core of bureaucracy while simultaneously reinforcing it and isolating some complex idea elements for later’, so a smart city can be more about maintaining bureaucracy as ‘a rational form of city modernization while maintaining [a] promise to improve urban futures’ (p. 1). Accordingly, this modernization leads to technocratic dominance over smart cities.

The role of citizens in smart cities and implications for Arctic urban sustainability

Several studies discuss the role of ICT in furthering citizens’ participation more broadly (e.g. Breuer et al., 2018). Smart cities recognize the role of human capital and identify people’s existing knowledge and skills in smart city developments as a central focus (e.g. Giffinger et al., 2007; Vanolo, 2014). In other words, in the logic of the smart city, digitalization and technology used for urban development must be done for and with unelected citizens. The involvement of citizens as co-creators of smart cities will, in turn, foster more democratic legitimacy, social justice, and effective governance (Fung, 2015).

Many initiatives have been created to encourage citizen involvement, including participatory budgeting, e-participation, strategy co-creation, hearings, citizens’ round tables, and living labs (for an overview, see Fung, 2015). Many are directly or potentially mentioned as a mechanism of citizen involvement in smart cities (Meijer & Bolívar, 2016). However, even if the smart city concept emphasizes dialogue with the citizens, it appears complicated to implement in practice, with full of rhetoric without real action (e.g. Grossi & Pianezzi, 2017; Hollands, 2020; Kitchin, 2014).

International research shows that although citizens are subtly asked to participate in the construction of smart cities, they are likewise implicitly considered responsible for achieving this objective (Vanolo, 2014). Such development leads to a situation where, despite the rhetoric of citizens’ involvement, smart visions are dominated by economic interests and technological agenda – and where, paradoxically, the citizens’ needs become the lowest priority (Cardullo & Kitchin, 2019; Kitchin et al., 2019; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016). Consequently, urban technologies are imposed onto communities without clearly understanding their needs and priorities (Kummitha & Crutzen, 2017), driven by neoliberal ideology (Kitchin et al., 2019). In the smart city context, sustainability becomes complicated beyond concerns of environmental friendliness, ultimately straddling economic, technological, and participation perspectives that are shaped by diverse local settings (William et al., 2020).

Complementing these critical concerns about citizens’ involvement, previous studies have demonstrated several challenges to increased participation. Reflecting on general aspects of participation, Fung (2015) stresses the problem of leadership, which requires more robust and systematic incentives for organizational leaders to develop viable forms of citizen participation. In addition, there is a lack of consensus on the proper roles or consequences of direct public engagement in cities (Fung, 2015). Moreover, when some activities in smart cities increase citizen participation without doing so meaningfully, or when citizens have little influence over tangible decisions, citizen involvement becomes trivialized. The former is further stressed as a part of the neoliberal citizenship challenge where, despite citizen-centric rhetoric, citizen involvement is still led by scalable, replicable, pragmatic, instrumental, and paternalistic high-tech market solutions of participation (Cardullo & Kitchin, 2019). Under such development, the general assumption is that ‘citizens are to be steered, nudged, and controlled; they can browse, consume, and act’ (Kitchin et al., 2019, p. 9).

Thus, research on the role of citizens emphasizes how their involvement functions in particular cities’ contexts, but how does it function in Arctic cities and communities? To answer this question, we can examine the growing research on citizen participation in smart city development and sustainability in the Arctic.

Acknowledging the growing interest in smart development in the northern rural and remote communities in Canada, Spicer et al. (2021) show that pursuing smart development, collaboration, and participation are essential to deal with the limitations of capacity, scale, and digital divides. Moreover, Degai and Petrov (2021) underline that for sustainability in the Arctic, sharing, reciprocity, and cooperation are some of the main practices: ‘dialogue among global and Arctic stakeholders including Arctic Indigenous Peoples as rights-, stake- and knowledge holders, with the engagement, equal partnership, and under the guidance of the Arctic residents’ (p. 519). However, recent studies have increasingly questioned whether the scenario they describe is true.

To assess dialogue formation with local stakeholders, Aleksandrov et al. (2019) studied 76 cities in the Arctic, including Russia, Norway, Finland, Alaska and Northern Canada. They show that the rhetoric of citizen involvement in smart city initiatives in the Arctic countries differs. Norwegian Arctic experiences demonstrate that, although striving for sustainability through citizen involvement, the development – with few exceptions – remains dominated by technocratic visions rather than a citizen-centric approach (Dybtsyna & Aleksandrov, 2020). Similarly, in most city cases, the Finnish Arctic deals with smart city development and urban sustainability by setting national and international priorities toward sustainability with more technology-centric visions and neoliberal ideology in the first place. North American Arctic cities more often use the term ‘smart’ to refer solely to telecommunication connections, without a clear vision of smart city development and citizen participation for sustainability needs. Finally, the Russian Arctic experience witnessed a top-down approach to defining smart cities and citizen engagement to create a ‘standard of participation’ controlled by federal authorities. While bringing vision from the top, the Russian Arctic standard scarcely matches cities’ realities and sustainability agenda. Thus, despite increasing rhetoric about smart city initiatives for sustainable development and citizen engagement in the Arctic, the questions of how, why, and for whom cities are becoming ‘smart’ remain unresolved.

Similar concerns are also evident in discussions of global – local voices and knowledge formation when constructing smart cities in the Arctic through dialogue and participation with citizens. For example, the dialogue formation between global and local smart city agendas clearly unfolds differently across governance actors with the dominance in the field by specific groups (e.g. authorities in Russia, developers in Norway), while local citizens’ voices and knowledge have been ignored (Aleksandrov et al., 2023). In the context of Arctic sustainability, such discussion is also complemented by the claim that, as technology advances, more marginalized groups are excluded due to difficulty in understanding or lack of access, contributing to socioeconomic inequality (Degai & Petrov, 2021; Finger, 2022; Spicer et al., 2021).

Discussion and conclusion

The quest for Arctic sustainability has become a growing concern during the past decade (e.g. Berman & Orttung, 2020; Dybbroe et al., 2010; Gad et al., 2017; Orttung, 2020; Petrov, 2022; Petrov et al., 2017; Suter et al., 2017), and this article sought to contribute to this discussion (e.g. Hirvonen-Kantola et al., 2015; Kuklina et al., 2021; Raspotnik et al., 2020; Raspotnik & Herrmann, 2021) by addressing smart cities’ role in the formation of Arctic urban sustainability. Although the smart city concept benefits from generally positive connotations as a solution for a sustainable Arctic future, this paper has questioned the straightforwardness of this relationship. To this end, we have critically discussed the value of the smart city concept for Arctic cities from an urban dynamic perspective (Grossi et al., 2020) that unpacks complexities and challenges in (1) metrics, (2) politics and bureaucratization, and (3) citizens’ role in smart city development.

Based on an analysis of the literature and secondary data from Arctic smart city research projects, the paper suggests the need to go beyond simple interpretations of the smart city as a solution for Arctic sustainability. We instead contend that it is vital to carefully translate the concept into local settings and consider challenges or concerns (see Table 1). Below, we present the three main concerns for Arctic sustainability using a smart city urban dynamics perspective and outline further research directions that could be used to address them. Notably, the presented aspects are not mutually exclusive but should be integrated when addressing sustainability in local contexts (Burns et al., 2021).

Table 1. Urban dynamics for smart and sustainable cities in the Arctic: Main concerns and future directions

Smart city urban dynamics	Main concerns about Arctic sustainability	Future directions for Arctic smart and sustainable cities to address
Role of metrics in smart city	Rankings do not only reflect smart city development in the Arctic but also project particular ‘smartness’ without the possibility of questioning it. Metrics can not only foster efficient and effective smart city construction in the Arctic but also limit its development.	How can metrics be translated and communicated to Arctic cities’ visions and local demands? What metrics can be created to integrate the work of different actors and their interests in Arctic cities?
Role of politics and bureaucracy in smart city	Funding structures and legitimacy pressure create powerful visions of what is smart for Arctic cities, with private actors dominating the process. Smart development can distract from real Arctic sustainability problems. The smart city idea can be limited to a set of administrative objects, downsizing human-centric aspects and Arctic sustainability demands.	How can power imbalances between local, national, and global actors be mitigated within Arctic smart cities’ development? How can the interpretation of smart city-related ideas be aligned as a state object with local Arctic demands?
Role of citizens in smart city	More rhetoric than real engagement in the Arctic, where citizens can be easily marginalized. Participation in smart city but not for the smart city that leads to ‘smart disconnection’ from Arctic citizens.	How can participation be encouraged to consider practical engagement in Arctic cities’ development, moving beyond rhetoric?

Smart does not equal sustainable in (for) the Arctic

To ensure sustainability, Graybill and Petrov (2020) suggest that Arctic development should ‘improve the health, well-being, and security of Arctic communities and residents while concerning ecosystem structures, functions, and resources’ (p. 12). Other studies in the literature likewise suggest that local environmental, economic, and social sustainability demands should be a part of the smart city agenda (AMAP, 2017; BIN, 2019; Mineev et al., 2020; Stephen, 2018). Nevertheless, as our paper illustrates, because smart cities do not automatically mean sustainable cities for the Arctic, this focus becomes somewhat problematic.

First, we illustrate that many existing studies on smart city metrics, both generally and in the Arctic specifically, show that metrics become essential technical and political devices for projecting a technocratic narrative of ‘smartness’ (Aleksandrov, Dybtsyna, et al., 2022; Giffinger & Haindlmaier, 2010; Saez et al., 2020; Vanolo, 2014). Accordingly, a focus on smart cities can lead to a situation wherein hegemonic views dictate Arctic cities’ construction, with no questioning of their metrics or methodologies nor formation of alternative interpretations of local ‘smartness’ (Svartefoss et al., 2022). Similarly, as internal metrics become increasingly crucial mechanisms for efficiency and effectiveness within smart city construction in the Arctic, the ambiguity and complexity created by metrics introduce challenging silos-based accountability relations and opacity (e.g. Aleksandrov, Hirvonen-Kantola, et al., 2022). These observations strongly align with previous concerns about sustainability metrics’ inability to sustain the interests of local actors in the Arctic (Graybill & Petrov, 2020; DiNapoli & Jull, 2020; Orttung, 2020; Petrov et al., 2016, 2017; Petrov & Vlasova, 2021).

Second, many concerns surround the politics and bureaucratization of the sustainability of smart Arctic cities. Specifically, we illustrate that funding structures and legitimacy pressures can create powerful visions of what is ‘smart’ and accepted for ‘value for money’ in the Arctic (Aleksandrov et al., 2023; Dybtsyna & Aleksandrov, 2020; Raspotnik et al., 2020b). This acceptance is strongly influenced by private actors’ interests and neoliberal ideology (Grossi & Pianezzi, 2017; Vanolo, 2014); both dominate the demands of Arctic cities, fueling the construction of dazzling technological solutions and new policies despite the need to consider other local problems. Regarding bureaucracy, we demonstrate that human-centric aspects of a smart city may be easily de-prioritized as bureaucracy can limit the smartness to a set of administrative objects to handle in the Arctic (Delaviz, 2022; Khodachek et al., 2022; Kolesnikova, 2023; Svartefoss et al., 2022). Reflecting Arctic sustainability concerns, we can even argue that a smart city rests upon a shaky foundation of sustainability, becoming a ‘Western construct that does not take into account Indigenous or local voices in a center’ (Graybill & Petrov, 2020, p. 12). Moreover, this concept is vulnerable to becoming merely another tool in the ‘new colonialism’ of Arctic values and knowledge, where administrators and decision-makers are strictly biased toward central perspectives (Hemmersam, 2021).

Finally, rhetoric formation or symbolic participation – rather than the real engagement of citizens – is a growing concern in Arctic smart cities (Aleksandrov et al., 2019, 2023; Dybtsyna & Aleksandrov, 2020). Citizens can be easily marginalized or convinced of their participation even as their decisions are predetermined or de-coupled from actions (Cardullo & Kitchin, 2019; Fung, 2015). This may then result in participation for the sake of it in Arctic cities instead of for Arctic cities, thus ‘smartly’ disconnecting citizens of the Arctic (Aleksandrov et al., 2019). Such concerns pose serious threats to Arctic sustainability, especially regarding economic and social concerns, as the formation of smart solutions in the Arctic does not critically assess the current voices and future lives of the local citizens and Indigenous Peoples.

Stimulating further research for smart and sustainable cities for the Arctic

Altogether, the concerns around urban dynamics demonstrate how we could see Arctic smart city development – which has a higher risk of downsizing than fostering sustainability – in a more nuanced light. Such connotations align with critical studies on Arctic sustainability that search for a more open dialogue about the value of the concept from a local perspective (Finger & Reking, 2022; Garbis et al., 2023; Graybill & Petrov, 2020; Orttung, 2020; Petrov et al., 2017; Petrov & Vlasova, 2021; Schaffner, 2020). However, if this is the case, how can we foster further research to address the presented concerns by combining those two streams? Below, we propose several avenues of research in this regard that can stimulate the creation of new ‘grammar of the High North’ (Erskine, 1958) for smart and sustainable cities (Table 1).

Regarding the concerns about metrics for smart and sustainable cities in the Arctic, we observe an urgent demand for research on how metrics are translated and communicated to the Arctic cities’ vision and local demands in practice. In other words, the evidence does not indicate that we must stop producing and using metrics due to the existing pitfalls; rather, our study encourages further thinking about creating and refining metrics – including the methods of their creation – that can integrate the work of different actors and their interests in Arctic cities. The most promising avenue for addressing the questions indicated by this study involves learning from in-depth case studies conducted from the points of view of practitioners and policymakers on smart and sustainable city metric formation and use. Such studies could ask: What sustainability aspects are highlighted or ignored in smart city metrics? How are different actors involved in the design of metrics, including minorities? Who decides what metrics to include and for whom? What are the challenges of an integrated metrics approach to grasp smart cities’ complexities in the Arctic, and what are possible solutions, such as visualization platforms? What qualitative alternatives can be offered for a more holistic and effective approach to measuring smart city progress toward Arctic sustainability, and how can different stakeholders be involved? Answering such questions will require a deeper dialogue with alternative views and mobilizing theories beyond those in metrics literature; for example, further inspiration may be found in political studies, anthropology, visualization, and sociology.

As for the political and bureaucratic imperatives of smart and sustainable cities, we encourage further studies to shift their focus away from the effects of smart and sustainable city development, and toward to its processes. To this end, we advocate an in-depth examination of how to mitigate power imbalances between local, national, and global political actors within Arctic smart cities. We propose that researchers explore the collaboration mechanisms and practices among diverse stakeholders in Arctic smart city initiatives; moreover, we offer the following potential research questions: How are different interests, values, and visions of smartness and sustainability negotiated, aligned, or contested in the Arctic? What are the power relations inside? How do different actors (e.g. public authorities, private companies, citizens, and Indigenous communities) perceive and enact smartness and sustainability in Arctic cities? How does power relation evolve? Similarly, as a bureaucratic focus, it becomes crucial to understand how to align the interpretation of smart city ideas as a state object with local Arctic demands. One may claim that the solution already exists in the form of a ‘smartocracy’ that unpacks the shadow culture and the work of low-level bureaucrats (Khodachek et al., 2022). However, whether it is universally applicable in every setting remains unclear. Therefore, we must address more knowledge on smart, sustainable, bureaucratic, and Arctic context interactions: How does a smart city idea encounter bureaucratic processes and Arctic context? How do bureaucrats perceive and enact smartness in the Arctic? How are Arctic sustainability demands translated (or lost in translation) via smart city agenda and bureaucratic processes? How do institutional and regulatory frameworks facilitate or constrain these initiatives and coordination among different actors and sectors?

Although we explored concerns surrounding the role of citizens in smart and sustainable cities in the Arctic, it remains unclear how we can foster participation that considers power imbalances and trade-off. Neither is it clear how to deal with and to openly communicate with citizens about smart city development in the Arctic beyond exercising rhetoric. Our proposed solution depends on who is involved. For now, no matter how emphatic the language around citizen involvement may be, we observe many similar pitfalls that research on citizen engagement revealed in the past 20 years (Fung, 2015). Most promisingly, this question could be addressed via an in-depth examination of different forms of engagement and underlying reasons and processes. Relevant research questions for this focus include: How are local residents and Indigenous Peoples involved in the co-creation and use of smart city solutions? How are their needs, preferences, and values reflected and respected in smart city development? How do they perceive and experience their involvement? What is the role of digital platforms in fostering their engagement? Do they stay true to, or change, the original culture, knowledge, and values during engagement into more ‘Western constructs’ (Gad et al., 2017), and if so, how? Finally, how can they foster emancipation from power disbalances and deal with the threat of smartness being a new method of recolonizing the Arctic (Petrov et al., 2016)?

These three suggestions indicate the need to more broadly test and explore critical dimensions in the contexts of specific countries, comparing them using quantitative and qualitative methods. We thus call for a search for commonalities and national variations within a single context (e.g. the so-called ‘many Arctics’). This investigation would require the use of alternative perspectives and theories when making sense of the development of smart and sustainable cities in the Arctic. It may be particularly useful to continue borrowing novel ideas from different disciplines, theories, and approaches when engaging in this approach (e.g. Finger, 2022).

Finally, if we consider the controversial nature of the sustainability concept itself (Ergene et al., 2021), – even as the paper posits that the critical insights presented can be valuable for Arctic sustainability – it remains unclear how they can be further ingrained into the minds of actors in smart city initiatives worldwide. Therefore, we encourage future studies to address the concerns presented herein about education and competence-building (Hirshberg, 2023). For example, studies may seek to answer how we can foster a critical awareness of smart city construction in a local setting and its challenges in addressing sustainability demands. Accordingly, researchers will need to examine the intended role of academic programs and cooperation patterns, how we can institutionalize alternative perspectives on smart and sustainable cities in the Arctic, and what as-yet overlooked competencies must be addressed.

Implications

The paper offers several implications for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. For scholars, the paper introduces an alternative debate to illustrate and further examine the complex relations between smart city development and Arctic sustainability (Berman & Orttung, 2020; Dybbroe et al., 2010; Heleniak & Bogoyavlenskiy, 2015; Hirvonen-Kantola et al., 2015; Kuklina et al., 2021; Orttung, 2020; Raspotnik & Herrmann, 2021; Suter et al., 2017). Specifically, we examine the pitfalls of the smart city concept when regarded as a panacea for sustainable Arctic urbanization (Grossi et al., 2020). We suggest further questions addressing several dimensions of urban dynamics – including metrics development, politics, bureaucratization, and the role of citizens – to overcome these pitfalls. Our paper thus contributes knowledge regarding the localization of the smart city idea in the Arctic while discussing related challenges and implications for sustainability.

For practitioners and policymakers who employ the smart city concept in discussions on sustainability, this paper highlights the problematic and often hidden side of smart city development, which demands carefully translating the concept and its promises into a unique Arctic context. The suggested urban dynamics view thus becomes valuable for critical competence formation in the Arctic in that it suggests paying greater attention to alternative areas of smart city thinking. Notably, our paper can encourage practitioners and policymakers to seek new, alternative, and multidisciplinary knowledge of smart cities that simultaneously deals with ICT while also fostering more critical reflections of smart initiatives for Arctic sustainability.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Jesicca Graybill, editor-in-chief of Polar Geography, for her guidance and suggestions during the review process. We are also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions that improved the paper. Moreover, we greatly appreciate the feedback on early versions of the manuscript from our colleagues at the High North Center for Business and Governance, Nord University Business School (Norway), and the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (Germany).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

We would like to thank several projects and institutions for their support, namely funding from the EduSmart project ‘Education and Knowledge Development for Smart City Governance and Performance Management in the High North’ (financed by the Research Council of Norway, grant #309532, INTPART program) and financial support from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).