تحقق‌پذیری شهر هوشمند به‌مثابه برساختی اجتماعی در ایران: تدوین مدل مفهومی با رویکرد نظریه داده‌بنیاد

A
BSTRACT
This study conceptualizes the smart city as a socially constructed phenomenon within the Iranian context and develops a localized, grounded conceptual model for its realization. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 31 stakeholders, including academics, municipal managers, technology specialists, and civil-society actors, and were complemented by 24 narrative interviews with residents from five under-resourced districts of Tehran. Data analysis followed open, axial, and selective coding with constant comparison and validation through triangulation, peer debriefing, and member checking. Findings revealed five interconnected dimensions shaping the realization of a socially smart city. Casually, citizen participation must evolve from token consultation to co-design with enforceable veto points, ensuring real influence in decision-making. Contextually, the rise of neighborhood-mediating capital, trusted intermediaries such as schools, women’s NGOs, and health houses, serves as the soft social infrastructure for technological acceptance. Intervening barriers include surveillance anxiety, platform illiteracy, and hidden access costs that reproduce digital inequalities. Strategically, the study proposes replacing general public training with critical digital literacy, implementing neighborhood-based pilot projects, and establishing a neighborhood data covenant to guarantee privacy, ownership, and grievance mechanisms. Consequently, success should be evaluated through justice-oriented indicators, reducing access gaps, enhancing agency, and fostering meaningful consent. Overall, the model reframes smart urbanism in Iran as a participatory, justice-centered, and culturally grounded process, offering policymakers and civic actors a practical roadmap for inclusive and socially responsive smart-city development.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
The rapid advancement of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has profoundly transformed the organization and functioning of cities. The smart city has emerged as a prevailing paradigm in contemporary urban planning, promising technological remedies to complex urban challenges such as congestion, pollution, inequality, and governance inefficiencies. Yet, global experiences demonstrate that a purely technocratic orientation is insufficient for sustainable smart city development. Smart cities are not merely technological systems; they are socio-technical constructs shaped by cultural values, power relations, and collective practices of participation and governance. With urbanization projected to encompass over 68% of the world’s population by 2025, the demand for inclusive, equitable, and contextually sensitive models of urban innovation has intensified. This study conceptualizes the smart city as a socially constructed process and examines the socio-cultural, institutional, and participatory mechanisms underpinning its realization in Iran. By employing a grounded theory approach, the research develops a localized conceptual model derived from empirical engagement with urban stakeholders. The central questions guiding the study are:
-What causal, contextual, and intervening factors influence the formation of a socially inclusive smart city?
-What strategies facilitate its realization?
-What social outcomes emerge from this process?
In addressing these questions, the research seeks to bridge theoretical gaps and inform policy frameworks attuned to local realities.
 
Methodology
This research adopts a qualitative design rooted in constructivist grounded theory, which is particularly suited to exploring complex, context-dependent phenomena from the standpoint of social actors. Data were gathered through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 31 participants, including academics, municipal managers, technology experts, and civil-society representatives actively engaged in Iran’s smart city initiatives. Participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling to achieve theoretical saturation and ensure representation of diverse perspectives.
The analytical process followed the coding procedures outlined by Strauss and Corbin open, axial, and selective coding facilitated through iterative comparison and memo writing. To ensure trustworthiness, triangulation, peer debriefing, and participant validation were employed. The study’s epistemological foundation rests on social constructivism, which views knowledge and reality as co-produced through interaction and shared meaning-making. By focusing on lived experiences and interpretive practices, the study constructs a grounded, empirically rich model of how technological, institutional, and cultural dimensions intersect in shaping smart urban transformations.
 
Results and discussion
The analysis of qualitative data led to the formulation of a conceptual model composed of five interrelated dimensions: causal factors, contextual conditions, intervening barriers, strategic actions, and outcomes, which together explain the realization of a socially constructed smart city.
Causal factors revealed that the foundation of a socially meaningful smart city lies in co-creation-based participation, where citizens actively engage in decision-making rather than serving as passive users of technology. Complementary drivers such as transparency, neighborhood-oriented governance, integrated management structures, and social inclusivity were identified as crucial for transforming smart city initiatives into participatory and human-centered processes.
Contextual conditions underscored the importance of institutional coordination and policy coherence across governmental and non-governmental actors. Additionally, capacity-building programs and innovation-friendly investments emerged as enablers that can strengthen the institutional and social environment necessary for inclusive digital transformation.
At the same time, several intervening barriers were identified as hindering progress. These include centralized and hierarchical decision-making systems, rigid bureaucratic frameworks, financial constraints, and ambiguous legal regulations. Moreover, the dominance of technocratic discourses—which frame smartness as purely technological—tends to obscure the complex social realities of urban life, further alienating citizens from governance processes.
In response, the study identifies a set of strategic actions essential to socially grounded urban innovation as empowering marginalized communities, advancing critical digital literacy, fostering local innovation ecosystems, and building horizontal networks of collaboration among civil society, government, and the private sector.
Finally, the outcomes of this socially constructed model extend far beyond technological optimization. They encompass enhanced civic participation, equitable access to urban services, improved quality of life, and the promotion of social justice and trust as core indicators of success.
Overall, the findings demonstrate that the smart city should be conceived not as a top-down technological project, but as a socio-political process that demands inclusive governance, contextual sensitivity, and citizen empowerment. The proposed model thus offers a localized and practical framework for Iranian urban policymakers, one that navigates the intertwined dimensions of technology, society, and governance to achieve a more just, participatory, and sustainable smart urban future.
 
Conclusion
This study reconceptualized the smart city as a socially constructed phenomenon and developed a grounded, context-specific model for its realization within the Iranian urban landscape. Moving beyond the dominant techno-centric and efficiency-driven narratives, the research emphasized that smart urbanism must be understood through the intertwined dimensions of social interaction, power relations, institutional structures, and cultural meaning-making.
The findings reveal that the success of smart city initiatives depends not merely on the deployment of advanced technologies but on the quality of governance, the depth of citizen participation, and the extent of public trust. The neighborhood scale emerged as a vital arena where inclusivity, co-creation, and social learning can anchor technological innovation in everyday life. Thus, the smart city is best envisioned as a living ecosystem—where policy coherence, educational capacity-building, and cross-sectoral collaboration create enabling conditions for digital transformation.
The proposed model demonstrates that the realization of a socially smart city results from the dynamic interplay among enabling factors (such as integrated management and investment in human capital), constraining forces (such as institutional rigidity and financial limitations), and strategic interventions (including empowerment, transparency, and participatory design). The outcomes—enhanced civic engagement, equitable access, urban resilience, and sustainability—underscore the need for a human-centered, justice-oriented paradigm of urban innovation.
Theoretically, this research bridges grounded theory and social constructivism to advance the discourse on smart cities as socio-political constructs rather than mere technological frameworks. In practice, it provides a contextually grounded roadmap for policymakers, urban planners, and civic actors to steer smart urban development toward collective well-being. Ultimately, smart cities must be reimagined as inclusive, participatory, and ethically grounded spaces where technology serves people—not the other way around.
 
Funding
There is no funding support.
 
Authors’ Contribution
Authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none.
 
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
 
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.