Strategic Planning as Management Tool for the Development of Smarter Cities: The Case of Brazilian Cities

Countless issues of the daily life of municipalities have constantly concerned cities, which have been addressed in the last decades under the umbrella of Smart Cities (SCs) initiatives. However, the literature has pointed out that proposing and executing projects in SCs initiatives must be aligned to the Strategic Planning (SP) of the city. Indeed, tackling the different interests in each category of city issues and ensuring effective community participation for indicating city goals can be the greatest challenge for local public administration, as it requires technical, modern, practical, and effective SP. Brazil is a large country with populous and dense cities, which also present these issues but also have appeared in diverse SCs rankings. The ones that most appear in such rankings are usually the capitals of Brazilian states. However, is not clear whether all these cities have their SP and how citizens follow their evolution. So this work aims to investigate if Brazilian state capitals have well-defined SP and if they actually use it as a management tool for proposing smart projects for developing smart(er) cities. More specifically, 27 state capitals were analyzed and the results showed that only 48% of the Brazilian state capitals have formally constituted planning artifacts, mostly by normative impositions, but only 30% of them monitor their SP through indicators. So, in order to turn the cities smarter, more than investing in technology, it is also necessary to innovate in planning, tracking and monitoring their projects and indicators.