Analysis of Smart City Support Projects

Published on April 27, 2023
Published by Economic Industrial Program Evaluation Division

   Countries around the world have set out to create smart cities as a new, alternative model to cope with urban problems and improve the quality of life of city residents. Korea is no exception to this initiative, and the nation has been actively driving the development of smart cities as a key policy option. The concept of the smart city is defined differently by each country. In Korea, it refers to a city that leverages information and communications technology to achieve improved urban quality of life and competitiveness and thereby realize urban sustainability.
   The purpose of this report is to examine both overseas smart city cases and Korea’s smart city support projects, identify key issues and opportunities by major area for these projects, and suggest measures for improvement. To highlight the analysis results, national pilot smart city projects have experienced delays in implementation as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport established “action plans,” developed from the master plan, and then the “service roadmap” to supplement the action plans. In addition, smart city services for national pilot cities are expected to incur excessive costs in implementation and operation, which implies the need to review their sustainability. The smart city solution expansion project has been pursued without a proper feasibility assessment, thus failing to support efficiency in public spending. Therefore, the appropriateness of the construction and operation costs of national pilot smart cities should be assessed during the budget review process going forward, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport needs to introduce a process to review the feasibility of smart city services in terms of their identification and expansion to seek measures to increase efficiency in public spending.