The project "Smart Cities in Global Comparative Perspective: Worlding and Provincializing Relationships", funded under the call Partnership Development Grants, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, is lead by Byron Miller (Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Canada).

This project draws from global networks developed through a SSHRC Connection Grant, leveraging connections in North America, Asia, and Europe to deepen our understanding of the processes shaping smart cities' social, political, and environmental relations. This partnership will advance interdisciplinary understandings of the diversity of smart city initiatives around the world and their societal implications.

Our comparative research program will focus on comparing smart city initiatives in seven cities around the world: Toronto, Calgary, Stockholm, Barcelona, Singapore, Taipei, and Seoul. Key research questions across the comparative case studies include the objectives of smart city initiatives, initiators of smart city initiatives, social coordination logics of smart city initiatives, legitimization of smart city initiatives, and scales at which initiatives are organized.

Insights from this research will provide valuable guidance for future smart city initiatives, helping to identify conditions under which smart city initiatives foster more open, participatory, just, and sustainable forms of urban development.