| dc.description.abstract | The current changing climate is increasingly forcing policy makers and governments to look at the sustainability in urban areas and the effect on the economic development. The livability in cities is decreasing due to mass urbanization and the pressure of the changing climate. However, cities are also the main drivers of the global knowledge - based economy. Smart city technologies are emerging to manage the climate implications in cities while keep developing economically. The purpose of this research is to see how the competitiveness of a city is affected by the concepts of sustainability and smart city. The notion prevails that sustainability and economic development are contradicting (Herrschel, 2013; Spearing, 2021). Therefore, it is interesting to analyze to what extent this relation is visible in urban regions. Additionally, smart city implementations are described as a possible way to achieve sustainability without compromising on economic development (Caragliu et al., 2011; Lombardi et al., 2012; Nam & Pardo, 2011). Thus the level of smart city can indicate the ability of a city to manage these problems.
In addition, the poly-centric urban region De Randstad is explored in more detail to investigate how the region performs on these concepts. The central research question, 'To what extent is De Randstad a competitive urban region and is it thereby sustainable and smart?’, has been answered by a comparison of 62 different cities through a secondary data analysis. Additionally, a case-study was conducted on De Randstad. This showed that the level of smart city has a positive impact on the probability of a city being competitive. However, there isn’t a clear distinction to be made on the concept of sustainability between the subregions. De Randstad can be regarded as a balanced region as it performs above average on all three concepts. In the case of De Randstad, the region performs above average on both concepts. In relation to the cities studied, De Randstad can be seen as a balanced region where the North Wing performs better in terms of competitiveness and smart urbanity than the South Wing. The analysis and the case study should provide a good foundation for further research into De Randstad or other urban regions. Thereby, it provides more insight for new policy and how De Randstad can improve on collaboration within the subregions. | |
