The discursive construction of a smart city: the case of the Wallonia Region’s ‘Smart Territory’ call for projects

The smart city concept encompasses and covers various societal issues. As such, it can
sometimes sound nebulous and ambiguous to local decision-makers. From one municipality
to another, different visions and meanings of the smart city—ranging from a reductionist
understanding based on technological determinism to a more holistic, socio-technical view—
can coexist and adapt to local specificities and contexts. Thus, each territory develops its own
vision of the smart city according to its challenges. All this may impact the implementation
of smart city policies. Drawing from the extensive literature on digital government in public
policy and administration as well as public management, this article investigates how local
decision-makers differently portray the concept of smart city and how they discursively
construct and legitimize their own vision of the concept. We analyze the Belgian “Intelligent
Territory” call for projects, initiated in 2019 by the Walloon Region. In particular, a
quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 88 projects submitted by various Walloon
towns, municipalities and inter-municipalities is carried out. More precisely, we explore the
motivations for implementing smart city policies put forward in their project by local
decision-makers. The empirical results highlight the diversity of visions of the concept of
smart city that exist in Wallonia city governments. We identify ten categories which offer an
original classification of the opportunities offered by smart city policies according to local
decision-makers. Our findings suggest that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for smart
city development. Overall, this study contributes to our understanding of the (varieties of)
discursive logics underpinning the construction of digital and smart city policy realities.