CONCEPTUAL EVOLUTION AND ESSENCE OF THE SMART CITY
Abstract
The article offers a comprehensive reappraisal of how the smart city concept has evolved and clarifies its substantive meaning. It traces the shift from an initially technology-driven and vendor-oriented Smart City 1.0 model towards a more service- and governance-oriented Smart City 2.0, and further towards a human-centred, mission-oriented Smart City 3.0 that deliberately synchronises digital and green transitions, links urban innovation portfolios to measurable climate and resilience objectives, and relies on multi-stakeholder co-creation mechanisms. Within this framework, the smart city is conceptualised as a socio-technical innovation system that integrates advanced digital infrastructure, data platforms and IoT ecosystems with knowledge-based local economies, environmentally sustainable urban metabolism and participatory, accountable forms of urban governance. The paper synthesises international experience, including the EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, Singapore’s Smart Nation strategy and Seoul’s Digital Twin S-Map, drawing on available performance indicators, investment volumes, market statistics and documented policy outcomes to illustrate how different governance models shape smart city trajectories. Particular attention is paid to the specific situation of Ukrainian cities, which simultaneously face the tasks of post-war reconstruction, European integration and rapid digital transformation. It is argued that, under these conditions, the smart city paradigm should function as a methodological backbone for digitalised recovery and long-term modernisation: it provides a coherent logic for structuring urban innovation portfolios, aligning them with EU standards and regulatory frameworks, embedding climate and sustainability targets into local development strategies, and designing transparent pathways from project-level results to city-wide socio-economic and environmental impacts that can be monitored, compared and continuously improved over time.
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