Smart city. Four approaches to the concept of understanding

The paper analyzes the rhetoric of the smart city (SC) concept in order to recognize, categorize, and describe different perspectives of understanding the notion. Four approaches to the SC concept were isolated: three affirmative, and one rejecting. The approaches present a different understanding of the SC and indicate different elements creating urban ‘smartness.’ Despite differences, there is one common goal in every affirmative approach: to improve the quality of urban life. It is achieved through activities covering five dimensions distinguished within affirmative approaches. Together they can serve, i.e.,as a framework for SC case study analyses.