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The impact of technology on tourist cities and destinations has led to the emergence of renewed management approaches that seek to adapt the planning processes to new challenges and opportunities derived from the smart scenario. The smart city and smart tourist destination approaches are aimed at improving efficiency in management, the quality of life of the residents and the tourist experiences. However, little is known about how these ideas are being translated into real policies and whether they are having a real impact. The objective of this paper is to understand how the smart approach is being deployed in the planning processes of Spanish tourist cities and destinations, and its implications in terms of the governance, sustainability and data-driven public management. The planning instruments that guide the smart strategies of different Spanish cities are identified and analysed. This is complemented with a questionnaire administered among managers of the smart city and smart destination initiatives. The findings reveal the diversity of smart initiatives, their benefits and limitations. The results contribute to generating a necessary debate on the implications of the smart discourse for urban and tourism planning and enrich the international debate around this approach. This paper has received funding from the EU's programme HORIZON 2020 under the Grant Agreement no. 870753. Project title: Cities as mobility hubs: tackling social exclusion through ‘smart’ citizen engagement (SMARTDEST). This work is also funded by GVA-COVID19/2021/103 project from “Conselleria d'Innovació, Universitats, Ciència i Societat Digital de la Generalitat Valenciana”.

Recently, the concept of the smart city has gained growing popularity. As cities worldwide have set the aim to harness digital technologies to their development, increasing focus came to lie on the potential challenges and concerns related to data-driven urban practices. In the existing literature, these challenges and concerns have been dominantly approached from a pragmatic approach based on the a priori assumed ‘goodness’ of the smart city; for a small group of critics, the very notion of the smart city is questionable. This paper takes the middle-way by interrogating how municipal and civil society stakeholders problematize the challenges and concerns related to data-driven practices in five Dutch cities, and how they act on these concerns in practice. The lens of problematization posits that the ways of problematizing data-driven practices contribute to their actual enactment, and that this is an inherently political process. The case study shows that stakeholders do not only perceive practical challenges but are widely aware of and are (partly) pro-actively engaging with perceived normative-ethical and societal concerns, leading to different (sometimes inter-related) technological, legal/political, organizational, informative and participative strategies. Nonetheless, the explicit contestation of smart city policies through these strategies remains limited in scope. The paper argues that more research is needed to uncover the structural-institutional dynamics that facilitate and/or prevent the repoliticization of smart city projects.

Increasingly guided by the use of ICT, the flow of humans and materials, smart cities and autonomous mobility amalgamate into a game changer in urban planning. This paper critically explores the role of autonomous (driverless) vehicles in plans for urban futures. By looking into the urban plans of 10 European capitals, we investigate the anticipated promises and hazards of autonomous vehicles. Theoretically, the paper draws upon critical urban mobilities studies that invite interlinking carbon reduction, smart cities and mobility planning. By examining these plans, the paper critically evaluates current urban planning for autonomous vehicles by asking whether one can identify any links to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of sustainable cities and communities. A practice-based view on automation is then suggested as a pathway to promote a thorough sustainable mobility transition. It is concluded that none of the plans of the 10 capitals studied require AVs to integrate with public means of transport or to be fuelled by renewable energy sources. Hence, AVs are likely to individualise and intensify the existing automobility regime further and emissions are likely to increase, according to the comparative urban analysis. We therefore conclude that urban policy-making needs to contest the existing techno-centric conception of autonomous vehicles if these are to support the sustainable development goals of cities.

This paper explores how urban planners can use a hybrid organization to manage smart city initiatives. We use an inductive qualitative case study approach based on connecting emergent concepts through Gioia's method to answer the following research question: “How can hybrid organizations manage a complex network of actors in smart city initiatives?”. The study highlights that in managing smart city initiatives, hybrid organizations benefit from actor-network theory. Additionally, for a more in-depth view, the study investigates the framework provided by Chourabi to test the hybridity theory. Overall, the results suggest that hybridity is feasible and increases the output directed towards citizens. The paper contributes to the existing literature on both hybrid organizations and smart cities. We conclude that despite the conventional distinction between public and private entities, managing smart city initiatives that include complex factors such as new technologies may require the adoption of hybrid management solutions by urban planners, especially when multidisciplinary and complex skills are required. Thus, smart city solutions are most effective when combined with hybrid management models. This research has utility for urban planners, policymakers, and researchers. It aims to support practical management solutions (analysed through a theoretical lens) to foster smart city initiatives.