Governance challenges for building smart green cities: From a multi-level governance perspective

Abstract

As cities become vulnerable to climate change and benefit from technological advances, the construction of sustainable and environmentally friendly cities has drawn the attention of policymakers, experts, and academia. Nevertheless, very few attempts have been made to develop cities by focusing on governance. This study examines the governance challenges faced and the policy implications for developing a Smart Green City (SGC) policy in Korea, focusing on the institutionalization of the 2020 SGC project. This study adopts a multilevel governance perspective to explore the limiting factors that take place in creating SGC by examining its vertical and horizontal governance frameworks. First, it identifies the multilevel governance challenges in building an SGC where stakeholders express conflicting interests. Second, it concludes that SGC governance is a matter of politics because urban environmental policies employ multilevel parties in which negotiating and compromising are inevitable among stakeholders. Finally, the study proposes a well-organized communication channel inviting embedded stakeholders for the success of the SGC project.