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This paper examines the link between the failure of public accountability and stakeholder disengagement brought about by a New Public Management (NPM) style “smart solution” introduced to reduce public urination in Dhaka city. It shows how New Public Governance (NPG), Islamic and dialogic approaches can improve decision-making and solutions.

Drawing on the concepts of public accountability, NPM, NPG and dialogic accountability, this study highlights how narrow conceptions of accountability and poor stakeholder engagement impacted the effectiveness of the “smart solution” based on data collected through observation and unstructured in-depth interviews.

Evidence suggests that narrow conceptions of accountability driven by monologic NPM perspectives led to poor stakeholder engagement, which impacted the effectiveness of the “smart solution”. The solution that consists of changing anti-urination signage from Bengali to Arabic script has not solved Dhaka's public urination problem. In many instances, the solution has disenchanted certain stakeholders who view it as an offence against Islam and a confusing de-privileging of the Bengali language which has significant national and cultural value in Bangladesh.

The findings of the study contribute to policymaking discussions on how to effectively engage with stakeholders and extend the literature on accountability within the context of conflicting public versus private demands related to a public nuisance. The study outlines important issues related to stakeholder engagement and introduces a framework that conceptualises how to increase the effectiveness of public policy decisions using NPG, Islamic and dialogic accountability approaches, especially on matters that require significant public/external stakeholder support. It also provides a conceptual integration of these various approaches, including nuanced insights into accountability challenges within “non-Western” contexts.

Citizens often perceive surveillance by government authorities as oppressive and, hence, demonstrate reluctance in value co-creation from such services. This study aims to investigate the challenges and benefits of citizen empowerment through technology-driven surveillance or “smart surveillance.”

Guided by Dynamic Capability theory, the authors conduct in-depth interviews with officers in-charge of surveillance in smart cities. Given the contemporary advancements, this approach allows a retrospective and real-time understanding of interviewees’ experiences with smart surveillance.

The authors develop five propositions for citizen empowerment through smart surveillance to summarize the findings of this study.

This study advances the relevance of Dynamic Capability in public administration.

Smart city authorities and policymakers may leverage the insights provided in this study to design appropriate policies for smart surveillance.

The authors find that factors such as digital technology and infrastructure, information management, skill divide and perceived return on investment may influence citizen empowerment through smart surveillance.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse a case of local freight stakeholder involvement to plan and design eco-efficient city logistics innovations in Como, a small city in Italy. While the importance of a well-functioning urban goods distribution system is widely acknowledged, city authorities have become increasingly aware of the need to minimise the negative impacts associated to the system. There are now countless examples of attempts to increase the eco-efficiency of urban freight deliveries; however, very few have made a notable impact. The success of such schemes often depends upon the response of a range of private sector freight stakeholders and their involvement during the planning process of these solutions is crucial.

To engage local freight stakeholders within the planning process of a city logistics project, the logical framework approach, in the form of the design and monitoring framework (DMF) developed by the Asian Development Bank, has been applied.

The structured consultation process implied within the DMF approach allowed urban freight stakeholders to share their aspirations from the beginning of the city freight planning process, despite their differences in priorities in adopting eco-efficient logistics innovations. The process ensured that city stakeholders accepted and committed to the city logistics strategies formulated during the consultation process, namely: changes to the Limited Traffic Zone regulation, the use of an urban consolidation centre and hybrid electric truck adoption.

The evaluation of the DMF application will be definitive after the demonstration/implementation stage of the city logistics project. It will then become clear if freight stakeholders have committed to the project and if it is effective in delivering the expected outputs and outcomes.

Local city authorities may find this method useful in situations where a structured consultation process is needed for addressing urban freight issues. This is especially the case in the context of introducing innovative, eco-efficiency solutions.

The application of DMF in the developed environment can be considered novel; this paper extends this with an application to the promotion of sustainable urban freight.

The purpose of this paper is to explore urban mobilisation patterns in two post-Soviet cities: Vilnius and Moscow. Both cities were subject to similar housing and urban policy during Soviet times, and they have implemented urban development using neoliberal market principles, provoking grassroots opposition from citizens to privatisation and marketisation of their housing environment and local public space. However, the differing conditions of democratic Lithuanian and authoritarian Russian public governance offer different opportunities and set different constraints for neighbourhood mobilisation. The purpose is to contrast local community mobilisations under the two regimes and highlight the differences between and similarities in the activists’ repertoires of actions in two distinct political and economic urban settings.

The paper employs qualitative methodology using data from semi-structured interviews conducted with community activists and state officials, presented using a comparative case study design.

Although, citizens’ mobilisations in the two cities are reactions to the neoliberalisation of housing and local public space, they take different forms. In Vilnius they are institutionalised and receive formal support from national and local authorities. Moreover, support from the EU encourages organisational development and provides material and cognitive resources for grassroots urban mobilisations. In contrast, residents’ mobilisations in Moscow are informal and face fierce opposition from local authorities. However, even in an authoritarian setting, grassroots mobilisations evolve using creative strategies to circumvent institutional constraints.

Little attention has been paid to grassroots urban mobilisations in post-Soviet cities. There is also a lack of comparative attempts to show variation in post-Soviet urban activism related to housing and local public space.

The aim of the article is to analyze the process of creating spatial value. The object of the analysis concerns the riverside areas of the city of Poznan. The study focuses on spontaneous practices that are outside the legal regulations, thanks to less-visited places which have gained popularity among residents and disciplinary techniques introduced by government officials in response to such activities.

At the theoretical level, the study is primarily based on Florian Znaniecki's spatial value concept and Michel Foucault's concept of power. The empirical research study includes quantitative (questionnaire-based interviews) and qualitative methods (expert interviews and content analysis).

Identification of the method of creating spatial value which does not require direct financial outlays; determination of disciplinary techniques used by government officials ultimately led to a reduction in the spatial value.

The article reveals the hidden mechanisms of functioning of the authority that defends itself against the reduction of its powers. It is an alternate way of analyzing and interpreting organizational changes in urban space to the one promoted by the Poznan authorities. The results can be used in various ways. Researchers representing the critical trend of urban research can interpret the process of creating spatial value by residents in terms of community, resistance and alternates to the actions of the authorities. From this point of view, the research study is interventional and exposing in nature. On the other hand, for city decision makers allowing the possibility to consume alcohol in a given area can be an effective, low-cost way of revitalizing it. Research can also be useful in assessing the effectiveness of particular disciplinary techniques by public officers.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse a process for developing indicators of effectiveness for the city brand strategy.

A single-case study method is used as the analytical approach. The proposed indicators of effectiveness were developed in cooperation between the municipal government of a large, post-industrial Polish city and representatives from academia.

The paper addresses three important considerations to be taken into account by city managers when they seek to develop criteria for measuring the effectiveness of branding: links between tangible and intangible effects of brand implementation; spillover effects that sectoral strategies such as those aimed at urban renewal have on the city brand and vice versa; and the adoption of a threefold temporal regime whereby the effects of projects that contribute to the brand strategy are measured in the short, medium and long term.

The proposed approach offers a useful point of departure for place managers for the design of place brand strategy evaluation systems. The study is limited to the case of a single city.

The merger of brand management and public management perspectives re-evaluates the existing attempts to measure place brand strategy effectiveness. The new approach stimulates place authorities to consider multiple perspectives on the methods and instruments of measurement. It also implies the organisational shift where a number of units from the city hall coordinate their efforts to contribute to the assessment of the brand strategy.

A more systematic approach to measurement of place brand strategy effectiveness can be used to increase the level of legitimacy of brand-related activities in the eyes of internal stakeholders and to increase the level of professionalism among the public officers responsible for effectiveness measurement.

Theoretical considerations and the practice of place branding alike tend to give insufficient attention to criteria for measuring the effectiveness of place-branding strategies. This paper concentrates on the process of translating general strategic objectives into specific, measureable and time-bound operational indicators. The combination of theoretical insights into place branding together with public management grounds this approach in the administrative environment in which local authorities work.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the strategies, policies and tools used in the World Heritage city “Old town of Regensburg/Germany with Stadtamhof” to face specific challenges. Even in a short period of time the city set up a management system which is working with an integrated approach to deal with all World Heritage issues.

Theoretical and practical UNESCO guidelines are the framework for each World Heritage property. On the local, regional and national level there are a multitude of parameters and stakeholders that must be integrated into the management of urban World Heritage properties to ensure that they are safeguarded.

This paper makes proposals on how to implement sustainable integrated World Heritage management, giving practical examples on how to include various stakeholders.

This paper is not a comparative case study using a variety of other World Heritage sites for comparison. The individual structures and different heritage values need specific and adapted solutions in each UNESCO World Heritage site. Nevertheless some of the tools, strategies and policies described can be transferred to other historic cities. Depending on size, number of inhabitants, intensity of tourism, as well as ownership, economical environment, governance, etc., the model has to be adapted to the specific local situation.

This paper presents a novel integrated World Heritage management approach for urban World Heritage sites, describing new tools and strategies to sustainably integrate cultural heritage in the urban development.

The purpose of the paper is to identify the state-of-the-art of scientific research on externalities generated in cities by the sharing economy in tourism (SET) based on an extensive literature review.

This review detected benefits and costs of the SET in cities development described in the literature using the economic externalities theory approach. The SALSA (Search, AppraisaL, Synthesis and Analysis) research procedure was used to collect relevant academic articles. For findings, the qualitative and quantitative content analysis combined to make a critical analysis of selected papers was conducted.

Thirty articles devoted to the impact of the SET in cities were identified. Five topics that gained researchers’ attention were recognized: real estate market; transportation; quality of life and gentrification; entrepreneurship and innovativeness of citizens; and local budgets’ incomes. The studies that present externalities of development of the SET in a more complex way are extremely rare.

Research limitations are related to the methods used. The subjectivism of the research is a limitation to possibilities to achieve similar results when analyzing the same set of papers by different researchers. The results then are not to be generalized.

The research reveals a list of problems with externalities of the development of the SET in tourism destinations. Those problems are to be solved by policymakers in cities.

This study identified the gaps of previous research on the impacts of the SET on cities’ development. The paper presented an original conceptualization of future research.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and learn from Chandigarh in addressing an orderly urbanisation in India. Chandigarh is considered as a benchmark for city design in India. The aim is recapitulate the city design process and garner useful inputs towards city design process in India.

Considering the purpose of the study, two research methodologies are identified – namely “case study” and “analytical narrative”. A case study method is usually focused on certain urban systems with a view to explain why certain systems were a success and why some ended up being a failure. It mostly concerns itself with questions of efficiency. A narrative analysis seeks to understand urban development process and change. It appeared in disciplines such as policy analysis, urban history, social science, political science and economics. Analytical narrative evaluates the explanatory performance of new genre, using some philosophy.

This paper contributes in reinvigorating the aura of Chandigarh and its contribution in developing an Indian city with its own identity. It also reflects upon the series of failure among the recent city planning endeavours, and its avenue of differences from the successful case.

The paper contributes in understanding the existing shortcomings of city design approaches in India from the perspective of a relatively successful case of a functional Indian city. It also helps to point out the forgotten dimensions of city design that contributes in creating a functional city.

The total capital value of the tenanted non‐residential property of English and Welsh local authorities is immense, more even than the total holdings of the top eight, UK‐based, property companies. However, while property investment companies own tenanted property for financial returns, the primary reason for its ownership by local authorities is far from clear. A survey of councils revealed that while many considered much of their tenanted non‐residential property was held for investment, it rarely formed part of wider financial investment aims. Moreover, investment objectives and management strategies were not clearly stated, prioritized, effected, or measurable. These failings were true of both individual properties and overall portfolios. Where property does not primarily meet a function of a statutory local authority, it must at least be regarded as non‐operational. The opportunity for a council to create a credible investment property portfolio is markedly restricted by the absence of the statutory objective of “property investment”. If, after review, property remains unsuited for assisting any real function of local government, it should be classed as surplus. It is proposed that local authority investment property may therefore justifiably be considered surplus to the functional objectives and requirements of a statutory local authority. If also unsuitable for operational use, such property should be programmed for disposal.