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Asian smart city initiatives have grown rapidly in recent years. As former members of the Four Asian Tigers, Hong Kong and Singapore have successively launched comprehensive smart city strategic plans, and exhibit high comparability in urban scale, economic development, and technological capacity. However, the outcomes of smart city construction show differences in IMD-STUD Smart City Index 2021, Singapore ranked 1st, while Hong Kong ranked 32nd. This study attempts to investigate this performance gap through developing a conceptual framework that examines two critical dimensions of smart city practices: technology development (ICTs development and technology innovation) and governance structure (smart city leadership and stakeholder engagement). The finding shows that digital information technologies are not powerful as such, their strength in enhancing urban governance depends on the institutional setting in which they are embedded. The Hong Kong SAR Government should establish a dedicated Smart City Leadership Task Force to fully leverage the government’s macro-regulatory capabilities, while emphasizing public co-creation and placing greater focus on data openness and bridging the digital divide.
Smart city; Governance structure; Technology development; Digital divide; Urban governance
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The Performance of Smart City in Asia: A Comparative Study of Singapore and Hong Kong
How to cite this paper: Jinning Ma. (2025) The Performance of Smart City in Asia: A Comparative Study of Singapore and Hong Kong. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science, 9(8), 1488-1495.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2025.08.003