Smart city policy in developing countries: Case study of the new administrative capital in Egypt

• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Author: Mohamed Abouelhassan Ali
• Date: 01 December 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2774

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Smart city policy in developing countries: Case study of the

new administrative capital in Egypt

Mohamed Abouelhassan Ali

1,2

1

Doctoral School of Regional Policy and

Economics, Faculty of Business and

Economics, University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary

2

Regional Urban Development Department,

Faculty of Urban and Regional Planning, Cairo

University, Giza, Egypt

Correspondence

Mohamed Abouelhassan Ali, Doctoral School

of Regional Policy and Economics, Faculty of

Business and Economics, University of Pécs,

7622, Pécs, Rák

oczi út 80, Hungary.

Email: mhmd_abouelhassan@cu.edu.eg

Funding information

Pécsi Tudományegyetem

Smart city policy has been employed through the last two decades to accommodate the

urban modifications, which utilize information technology, innovation, and smart man-

agement for urban governance. The study aims to discuss the case study for the

Egyptian condition's smart city model and policy, using policy narrative analysis for the

fourth-generation cities and the pioneer model.From a policy perspective,the Egyptian

smart city model's contribution has received little attention from previous studies deal-

ing with the smart city in the Egyptian context. Therefore, the present research explores

presenting and discuss the Egyptian smart city mode l as an innovation development

policy perspective. The analysis employs The new administrative capital as a case study.

The policy documents and the online interview with Administrative Capital for Urban

Development Company officials have been used. Our findings found that the NAC

might be the successful path for the smart city model inside the Egyptian context, con-

sidering some implementation policy recommendations. The NAC's innovative compo-

nents deem a prompt to invigorate the regional and national levels' innovation process.

The Egyptian case study's smart city model uses a holistic strategy with a quadruple

helix to develop the urban system to attract knowledge and innovation.

KEYWORDS

case study, developing countries, Egypt, fourth-generation cities, new administrative capital,

new smart cities, smart city policy, urban studies

1|INTRODUCTION

Modern urban development has been inspired by discussions of smart

cities, not only in developed countries but also in developing. The sec-

ond type usually seeks effective urban development tools to face

infrastructure inefficiencies, transportation challenges, waste manage-

ment, continuous environmental depletion, and deficient governance

tools besides social issues such as security and crime prohibition

(Fromhold-Eisebith & Eisebith, 2019; Laufs et al., 2019). These lead to

the necessity of understanding the local urban development issues

inside every country to set its suitable model. Change et al. (2018)

argued that rather than apply previously used models for developed

regions, a region's developmental characteristics would be used, with

working its urban renovation by knowledge and know-how transfer

(Chang et al., 2018). Smart city concept is multidisciplinary, which

adopted ICT as a core drive to face urban growth issues, develop a

better future for its citizens from the smart economy, smart environ-

ment, smart mobility, and provide a quality life level. In the third mil-

lennium, cities are increasingly duty as spatial environments for

innovation, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, and knowledge

(Kourtit et al., 2012). These Urban conversions have prompted much

research on urban smartness to adapt to urban areas' contemporary

components. The term “smart”appeared in urban planning in the

1990s in the USA in the “smart growth”Context to face urban

Received: 16 April 2021 Revised: 30 August 2021 Accepted: 6 October 2021

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2774

J Public Affairs. 2022;22(Suppl. 1):e2774. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of16

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2774

agglomeration issues. Meanwhile, the related research began to grow

significantly in 2010 when the EU has started using the term “smart”

to qualify sustainable urban development projects (Miloševi

c

et al., 2019).

Egypt is one of the emerging economies in the MENA region,

with potent transformation paths. Vision 2030 and the national stra-

tegic plan 2052 have been established for holistic development, as an

aspect of it is smart city policy, innovation, and knowledge. The coun-

try has started over-ambitious programs and projects for all sectors

beginning in 2013, accompanied by its political and economic

changes, urban and regional development as a top of these priorities.

For facing urban and regional challenges, the current Egyptian admin-

istration sought to expand the urban development land. One of these

megaprojects is constructing 14 new cities from the fourth-generation

cities and establishing a smart city model for the Egyptian context,

progressing the country's infrastructure and supporting a steady

investment environment (Hussein & Pollock, 2019).

Little is published about the smart city's Egyptian model from the

policy perspective, especially the pioneer model for the new adminis-

trative capital (NAC) policy, which started its establishment in 2015.

Studies that dealt with the NAC did not address the model compo-

nents and the NAC studies' policy aspect. Besides, this current study

contributes for the first time to present the proposed model for a

smart city with a discussion of the model. The present study's key

strength was giving the Egyptian policy perspective considered a new

experience for the smart city era in the Egyptian context. These find-

ings provide insights into whether the ability to apply the model for

other Egyptian cities. One of the NAC model's main strengths is deter-

mining the particular governance system for managing the smart city

model through the New Capital for Urban Development Company.

Besides, the smart services model has been distinguished by a

technology-based model and determining aspects. The study contrib-

utes to our understanding of the smart city's role as the spatial envi-

ronment for innovation systems, which has evidence from the NAC

model.

This study discusses a smart city's concept from the disparity of

definitions, componantes, and dichotomy for spatial strategies, espe-

cially for developing countries. Also, the paper provides an overview

of the Egyptian model for the smart city. The study aims to present

and discuss the Egyptian smart city policy and discover the model's

componantes through the case study paper method. The primary

question that has been determined is to what extent the NAC con-

siders the successful path for the smart city policy into Egypt. This

article is structured as follows. First, this study presents a research

methodology for investigating smart cities by determining strategy,

method, and data collection method. Second, introducing the concep-

tual framework for smart cities through definitions, requirements and

components, and Spatial development strategies for the smart city.

Third, presenting a smart city model for developing countries, which

presents a set of developing countries cases. Fourthly, the paper ana-

lyzes the Egyptian case for the smart city as a transition country by

giving the Egyptian Policy framework proposed and analyzing the pio-

neer model for smart cities. Finally, it discusses the weaknesses and

strengths of the Egyptian smart city experience, followed by conclu-

sion and policy recommendations that could improve Egyptian policy

for the smart city approach.

2|RESEARCH GAP

Many studies have dealt with the approach of smart cities and smart

urbanization, especially recently in developing countries. Many devel-

oping countries in East Asia and the Middle East have focused on the

smart city approach as a contemporary urban development policy to

meet the challenges and issues of urban management in developing

countries. Egypt is one of the developing countries that has gone

through transitional stages since 2013 due to political and social

transformations and the events of the Arab Spring and as a result of

economic reforms in 2016. The state has sought to enter the era of

smart cities as an urgent necessity to confront urbanization around

the capital region (Greater Cairo Region) in terms of urban manage-

ment problems. In addition to integrating new projects from fourth-

generation cities and fourth-generation universities, unique financial

and business centers, and using technology and knowledge in settle-

ment policies urbanization within the new smart cities. This type of

city provides a suitable environment for these projects away from the

challenges and dilemmas of the existing bloated urbanization.

Therefore, the literature review indicated that many authors and

researchers had addressed the idea of smart cities as one of the mega

projects implemented by the state or from the point of view of land

uses within these cities (Janik et al., 2020; Mora et al., 2019; Tan &

Taeihagh, 2020). However, not all of them dealt with the concept of

policy, approach, evaluation, and extrapolation of the experience that

began in 2014 for smart cities for the Egyptian case. And therefore, to

what has grown from our research and our knowledge, none of the

studies reviewed the experience of the smart city approach as a

development policy for the Egyptian case as one of the developing

countries with transitional stages.

Therefore, the current study is unique while presenting the

Egyptian experience from the perspective of smart city policy and its

mechanisms and the pioneering model of the Egyptian case. To shed

light on whether it is appropriate to apply the smart city approach to

bring about development booms in the smart cities regions? There-

fore, the current study is the first contribution to extrapolating and

evaluating the Egyptian experience of smart cities over the past

7 years, highlighting the potentials and capturing strengths and con-

cerns that can be eliminated to create a successful and promising

application of the Egyptian experience, which can be applied in similar

cases in terms of development stages and characteristics.

3|RESEARCH DESIGN AND

METHODOLOGY

The research methodology used in the study is based on strategy

identification, research method, and data collection. The research

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