Strategic Planning in the Implementation of the Smart City Concept

The paper analyzes the strategic decisions made in the development of smart city strategies. The author analyzes characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of different variants of smart city concept implementation (national/local strategies; new cities development strategies / existing cities development strategies; strategies focused on the development of rigid/soft infrastructure, sectoral strategies / strategies focused on geographically defined areas and clusters). Smart city strategies may be aimed at improving the efficiency of the city's infrastructure systems (transport, water, waste, energy) or at developing so-called soft infrastructure: social and human capital, knowledge, participation, social innovation, social justice, etc. The article concludes that strategic planning in the implementation of the concept of smart cities is still an unexplored area, which is largely due to lack of clarity on what smart cities are and how they can be implemented. The author shows that the choice of an optimum scenario of development of smart city in many respects depends on the purposes which the city puts before itself, and also on starting conditions and is based on laborious process of an arrangement of priorities.