Internet of Things in Smart Cities: Comparison
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The widespread diffusion of internet-based information communication technologies (ICT) has profoundly impacted city governance, thereby leading to higher energy efficiency, green production, and sustainable development. On the other hand, the spatial effect of these digital technologies has attracted extensive discussion. Digital technology has revolutionized the methods and the cost of information transmission, enabling a massive amount of information to be accessed without time and distance constraints.

  • smart city
  • urban population
  • difference-in-differences analysis
  • urban environment

1. Brief Description of the Smart City and Its Application in China

The smart city has in-depth applications of information communication technologies (ICT), such as the Internet of Things (IoT). Connected by the internet, IoT systems monitor different aspects of the smart city (e.g., the environment, energy, and transportation), providing essential information to the smart city government and residents. Information regarding the environment enables the city administration to perform optimized pollution control so as to improve environment quality while maintaining desired production levels. Furthermore, the abundant ICT resources in the smart city lower the internet’s connection cost, and the procedure to access information familiarizes smart-city residents with the internet as a method of information gathering and sharing, making them active users of the internet. In practice, smart city projects conform to the smart city concept. “Smart Country 2015”, implemented by the Singapore government, aimed to connect individuals, enterprises, and the government via the internet; “U-Korea” launched in Korea was intended to enhance internet availability, digitalize the cities, and improve environmental quality; “I-Japan” implemented in Japan focused on the application of IoT in e-governance and education.
China is also a keen pioneer of SCC. Since 2010, the Chinese government issued a series of policies regarding the introduction and specification of the smart city. The policies aimed to promote ICT application in cities in seven spheres: infrastructure, construction, livability, management, service, industry, and economy. Subsequently, in 2012, the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development announced the first list of national pilots for SCC, consisting of 3 town-level regions, 50 county-level regions, and 37 prefecture-level regions. In the following two years, 200 additional regions were selected as national smart-city pilots in the second and third batches of pilots. As the pilots of the SCC, these three batches of pilot regions received government funds from the central government for smart city construction; meanwhile, each pilot batch was given a three-year construction period to implement the policy targets. In 2017, according to the report on the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese government had already invested over 500 billion yuan in SCC. As of 2019, 271 prefectural cities in China were undertaking SCC 5. In light of the above, the construction of smart cities will significantly influence every aspect of China’s economy through the application of new-generation ICT.

2. Literature of Smart Cities

Literature regarding smart cities can be categorized into two strands. The first strand of the literature demonstrates that a smart city is a city with an upgraded ICT level. Although the definition of the smart city varies in the literature [36][1], there is a consensus that the implementation of a smart city will strongly promote the level of ICT applications in a city. When the term “smart city” was first introduced in the 1990s, research was focused on how ICT could be designed and integrated into the city [37][2]. In practice, through reliance on state-of-the-art information technologies—e.g., monitoring sensors, the IoT, and big data—ICT is designed to merge into aspects of a city’s critical infrastructure, such as transportation, energy supply, and waste management [28,33,38][3][4][5].
The second strand of the literature shows that these ICT upgrades, in turn, alleviate environmental issues in smart cities and enhance residents’ connections to the internet. Specifically, the smart city benefits the urban environment in three respects: First, the smart city enhances energy efficiency to alleviate pollution. Theoretically, the IoT and big data enable the city administration to optimize the operation of the city, such as its transportation and production, leading to optimal energy consumption and, hence, lower pollution [39][6]. By analyzing 251 cities in China, Yu and Zhang [1][7] empirically confirm that the smart city has higher energy efficiency and fewer environmental issues than non-smart cities. Second, the smart city can directly monitor pollutants, which helps reduce pollution. Sensors with optical and pressure systems can visualize and simulate pollution, which assists city operations in waste processing and recycling [40,41][8][9]. Third, the smart city promotes innovations for pro-environmental technologies, reducing pollution. Chu et al. [35][10] show that the smart city decreases urban pollution levels through innovations in green technologies and resource allocation in China. Furthermore, ubiquitous ICT in the smart city provides network infrastructure to residents while enabling them to adapt internet to their lives [42,43][11][12]; moreover, the smart city enhances the ICT experience for the residents and empowers them to utilize internet services through multiple devices connected to the ICT infrastructure [44][13]; Schaffers et al. [45][14] shows that the smart city facilitates citizens’ skills in using information technologies by encouraging them to participate in IoT projects through the internet.

3. Environment Effect and Population Outflow from Cities

Cities with poor environment can experience a decrease in population due to population outflow. According to Rosen–Roback’s urban spatial equilibrium theory [46[15][16],47], the spatial mobility of labor is affected by urban amenities; hence, the urban environment, an essential factor affecting the well-being of the residents, doubtless plays an important role in determining whether residents would stay or leave a city. On the one hand, with rapid development in industrialization and urbanization, developing countries such as China enjoy the economic benefit of expanding cities. On the other hand, urban areas in developing countries suffer from severe pollution issues. For example, using an air quality index, Liu and Yu [21][17] show that the majority of Chinese cities have poor air quality; further, it has been reported that half a million people die in India every year due to air pollution 6. Studies also confirm that urban pollution exerts a negative influence on residents’ health. Pollution is harmful to the residents’ physical well-being because it contributes to health problems such as stroke and cancer; in particular, air pollution is highly associated with respiratory and cardiovascular disease [48][18], increased infant mortality rates [49][19], and decreasing worker productivity [50][20]. From a mental health perspective, the deterioration of the urban ecological environment, such as air quality, can negatively impact an individual’s mental health and significantly decrease residents’ subjective well-being [51,52,53][21][22][23].
Migration decision-making involves analysis of costs and returns [54][24], and the returns in terms of health outweigh the cost of migration for many people; in other words, for physical and mental health reasons, more families are choosing to move out of cities with severe pollution. Tiebout [55][25] proposes a “voting with one’s feet” theory that families would migrate to a community with desired public goods. Based on this theory, economists find empirical evidence that people do “vote with their feet” on environmental quality. Areas with increased pollutant emissions have undergone a 9% population decline [56][26]; additionally, using a Baidu search index of the keyword “migration”, Qin and Zhu [57][27] find that for every 100 point increase in the air quality index, the frequency of searching for “migration” will increase by 4.8%, which reflects that air pollution increases people’s willingness to out-migrate; Heblich et al. [58][28] also illustrate that coal pollution leads to a persistent population outflow from industrial cities for families that can afford the cost of moving. Furthermore, polluted cities are not attractive destinations for migrants. Chen et al. [23][29] show that an increase in air pollution can increase the outflow of residents from a county by 50%; migrants in a polluted city are less likely to settle down and more likely to re-migrate [21][17].

4. Internet Effect and Population Inflow to Cities

In the digital era, a city with more internet users has advantages in attracting potential migrants by providing them with essential information. Information concerning the destination, such as income, job opportunities, and education availability, is indispensable to migration decision-making. Lack of accessibility to such information will inhibit migration and hence lower the migration rate [59][30]. Before the digital era, migrants gathered information mainly from narrow personal networks and, consequently, their choice of destination was constrained. Boyd [60][31] points out that the social network from kinship, friendship, and community is essential for immigration to industrial countries. Limited by information availability, migrants tend to move to places where their relatives or friends live, who can serve as a sufficient source of information [61][32]. However, in the digital era, ICT has enormously reshaped ways of communication and forms of social networks. As a backbone of ICT, the internet can transfer information at light speed while lowering the cost of information in search and transportation [62][33]. In this context, digital platforms that build on ICT play an increasingly significant role in maintaining and expanding social networks. Shah et al. [63][34] find that the internet has a growing number of users, especially among the young generation. Additionally, the internet has been widely used for information collection or relationship maintenance through online applications such as instant messaging tools or digital social media [64,65][35][36]. The frequent usage of the internet, in turn, expands interpersonal connection [66][37], social networking [67][38], and social connectivity with strangers [68][39]; Goggin [69][40] also shows that this phenomenon persists in mobile social networks.
The above studies showed that the internet enlarges the source and the scope of the information, which complements the traditional social network. Conversely, these changes impose an influence on population inflow to a city. Through digital platforms, the internet provides potential migrants with a wide range of information, such as housing prices [70][41], job opportunities [71][42], and education [72][43]. Consequently, the abundant information on the internet can extend the choice of migration destination; in other words, instead of moving to places where acquaintances or relatives live [60[31][32],61], migrants will choose a place where the information is abundant. Empirical evidence shows that the use of the internet decreases information friction and enhances information flow; as a result, the internet promotes domestic migration over even greater distances than before [72,73,74][43][44][45]. Winkler [75][46] finds that the increase in internet adoption enhances within-country migration whilst inhibiting immigration.

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