How smart and sustainable are the cities in Turkiye? - National policies and the enthusiasm level of the local governments

In the past decade, the importance of the smart city applications has gained popularity by the city governments to use their resources in an efficient and effective way, present better services and quality of life for their residents, make their cities more competitive, provide better disaster management. As the world has experienced crisis such as energy and grain in the recent past due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine, the management of the resources has become more important for the countries and local governments, as well. In this study national government plans of Turkiye, such as Eleventh Development Plan and 2020-2023 National Strategy and Action Plan for Smart Cities, have been addressed as reference documents and the actions of some city governments, including the most populous city, Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, have been examined with the purpose of determining the level of smart city willingness. This study peruses the degree of enthusiasm of the local governments to become smart and maintain sustainable city services considering the main smart city characteristics. Based on the information gathered concerning the selected cities, it has been observed that the cities having populations quite lower than the great metropolitans such as Istanbul and Ankara are more enthusiastic and successful to provide services for their citizens that can be associated with the smart city concept.