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Digitalising cities requires new urban governance processes that account for rapidly changing environments and technological advances. In this context, agile development methods have become valuable, if not necessary. However, agile development contradicts public administration practices of risk aversion and long-term planning. The purpose of this study is to discuss practical avenues for navigating these two contradictions by adapting agile development to the needs of public sector organisations.

The authors review the collaborative elaboration of Dresden’s smart city strategy as a critical case study. Dresden’s smart city strategy was developed using agile development and quadruple-helix innovation. The year-long co-creation process involved stakeholders from various groups to conceive an integrated and sustainable vision for digitalisation-based urban development.

Despite the apparent contradictions, this study finds that key aspects of agile development are feasible for public sector innovation. Firstly, risks can be strategically managed and distributed among administration and non-administration stakeholders. Secondly, while delivering value through short iterative loops, adherence to formal processes remains possible. Informal feedback cycles can be harmoniously combined with official statements, allowing iterative progress.

The empirical material is based on a single case study and thus risks overemphasising the general applicability of the proposed methods.

This paper outlines practical steps to greater agility for public administration engaged in digitalising cities. The paper conceptualises a forward and lateral momentum for the agile development of a smart city strategy that aims to reconcile formal policymaking processes with short-term loops and risk aversion with experimental value creation. This approach balanced risks, created value and enhanced the strategy‘s alignment with strategic frameworks, ultimately promoting innovation in the public sector.

This paper proposes a novel, empirically grounded conceptualisation of implementing agile methods that explicitly recognises the peculiarities of public administrations. It conceptualises the orchestrated and pragmatic use of specific agile development methods to advance the digitalisation of cities.

This study aims to explore the relationship between folk religious place-making and the development of urban public spaces and summarize its influence on community network construction and daily behavior to discover the authentic practices and role of folk faith culture in social space.

Taking Macau's Shi Gandang Temple and its belief culture as an example, on-site research, historical evidence and interviews were used to elaborate and analyze the processes of place-making, social functions, management mechanisms and folk culture to establish a new perception of folk religious place-making in contemporary urban spaces.

The article argues that the culture of folk beliefs profoundly influences urban spaces and the social management system of Macau and has a positive significance in building the local community and geopolitical relations. In addition, it suggests that the participation of folk religious places in local practices is important as key nodes and emotional hubs of local networks, reconciling conflicts between communities of different backgrounds and driving urban spaces toward diversity while forming a positive interaction and friendly cooperation between regional development and self-contained management mechanisms, governance models and cultural orientations.

This study takes an architectural and anthropological perspective of the impact of faith on urban spaces and local governance, using the Shi Gandang Temple in Macau as an example, to complement related studies.

Political Science in the United States has focused too much on variable-oriented, quantitative methods and thus lost its ability to ask “big questions.” Stein Rokkan (d. 1979) was an eminent comparativist who asked big questions and provided such qualitative tools as conceptual maps, grids, and clustered comparisons. Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), arguably the first social scientist, also asked big questions and provided a universal explanation about the dialectical relationship between nomads and sedentary people. This article analyzes to what extent Ibn Khaldun's concepts of asabiyya and sedentary culture help understand the rise and fall of the Muslim civilization. It also explores my alternative, class-based perspective in Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment. Moreover, the article explores how Rokkan's analysis of cultural, geographical, economic, and religio-political variations within Western European states can provide insights to the examination of such variations in the Muslim world.

The paper aims is to see why social conflict caused by class segregation did not occur in Gading Serpong? What factors prevent conflict from occurring? This research seeks to find the causes of the nonoccurrence of social conflict due to class segregation in the Gading Serpong cluster area and explore the factors that restrain conflict there.

This research is qualitative research with data collection techniques through in-depth interviews with several parties identified as brokerages in the research object area. In this context, one of the media and analytical tools is to recognize agents or brokers who connect two groups of people. Brokerage occurs in sectors, patterns or forms of informal, personal relationships; to understand it, one must pay close attention to micro-level relationships and social psychological processes. However, brokerage can have a significant impact on macro-level social relations, as it is generally associated with social integration processes.

The lack of involvement of developers in overcoming social conflicts that occur between Gading Serpong natives and migrants in Gading Serpong housing has given rise to new actors. These new actors are what we can call brokers, where they have a role as brokers who are able to connect between migrants and natives in the Gading Serpong area. The broker phenomenon is actually familiar in academia, where in practice the broker acts as someone who is able to find solutions to problems. The broker is the reason even social segregation is created between migrant citizens and native citizens in Gading Serpong but never becomes a conflict between them.

Even if the brokerage phenomenon is the reason why there is no conflict over social segregation brokerage is not the only factor in this nonconflict segregation. Therefore, to cover the larger area of these suburban segregation problems, there must be further research on this topic.

The practical implication of this research is to encourage the housing developers that create urban housing, such as clusters or other gated communities, to evaluate the social factors, such as potential segregation and conflict management. Also to encourage the developers to get involved and create some social engineering systems, like brokerage, market and other social agents, to create some nonconflict segregation or even more inclusive communities.

This research is uncovering the main reason why social segregation between migrant and native people in Gading Serpong, which could potentially lead to conflict, is never a conflict. The main reason is social actors like brokerage.

Through the reconstruction of the events of some foreign entrepreneurs who worked in the territory of the Italian city of Bari in the first half of the 19th century, this paper aims to analyze the role of entrepreneurial migration in the economic development of Apulia land in this period.

This study adopts a theoretical framework that combines the concept of mixed embeddedness in a multifocal perspective, with the model of the diffusion of innovation focusing on the role of the so-called agency of actors, and of the network, in the dissemination of innovation. The theoretical framework is applied to multiple case studies to compare the evidence that emerged from the simultaneous analysis of several situations.

By analyzing how innovations have spread within the network of entrepreneurs of that time, it is possible to identify some relevant aspects related to the mechanisms of dissemination of innovations in the context of entrepreneurial migration. Specifically, the opportunity structure is intended in an even broader sense than indicated in the classic approach to mixed embeddedness: it is considered as the result of the joint interaction of the political, institutional and economic context of several places, and the behavioral dynamics of several groups.

Due to the specific method chosen, the outcomes of the research might apply to a narrow context. Therefore, the results need to be tested and confirmed in further empirical studies, and by applying multiple research methods.

Findings are useful and significant in the analysis of the link that exists between the diffusion of innovations and migrant entrepreneurship, and then the conclusions can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations, with specific reference to developing countries.

Findings can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations and highly skilled migration, with specific reference to developing countries.

This paper contributes to shed new light on the contextual and multifocal factors that influence the development of innovations in the networks of migrant entrepreneurship, in a specific historical period and a specific context. Combining social, human and financial capital with the wider opportunity structure, this study also provides a comprehensive understanding of the modalities through which migrant and high-skilled entrepreneurs could innovate.

Despite city authorities in Bangladesh being concerned about urban sustainability, they often face difficulties in addressing predominant urban challenges threatening urban sustainability, due to limited relevant literature. To reduce this gap, this study aims to address the predominant urban challenges and assess their severity levels in four city corporations of Bangladesh, e.g. Rajshahi, Sylhet, Barishal, and Gazipur.

Using a mixed-method approach, this study rigorously analyzed field-level data obtained from 1,200 residents across selected cities using diverse statistical techniques. The quantitative analysis included descriptive analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and chi-square tests, whereas qualitative insights were derived through thematic analysis.

The study uncovered nine predominant urban challenges under two crucial factors “Feeble Urban Management” and “Illicit Activities” that collectively explain 62.20% variance. “Feeble Urban Management” explains 44.17% variance, whereas “Illicit Activities” accounts for 18.13%. Within these challenges, uncontrolled urban sprawl, inadequate disaster management, congested roads, and shabby drainage and waste management pose significant threats to urban sustainability. Illicit activities, manifested by encroachment on water sources, grabbing roadside, destruction of natural properties, and activities undermining social security, compound the urban sustainability issue. Severity analysis reveals Sylhet (54.5%), Rajshahi (46.4%), and Barishal (31.2%) as highly impacted, whereas Gazipur exhibits moderate severity (66.7%).

The findings of this study reveal intrinsic insights into urban challenges in Bangladesh that will provide valuable guidance to city authorities, equipping them to implement integrated and effective initiatives and programs that overcome these predominant urban challenges, with a specific focus on Rajshahi, Sylhet, and Barishal city corporations.

This study aims to investigate the synergies between the economic environment and the smart living dimension embedded in the current smart city initiatives, focusing on the localization of female entrepreneurship in contemporary cities. This interaction is under-investigated and controversial as it includes cities' practices enabling users and citizens to develop their potential and build their own lives, affecting entrepreneurial and economic outcomes. Building upon the perspective of the innovation ecosystems, this study focuses on the impact of smart living dimensions and R&D investments on the localization of female entrepreneurial activities.

The study uses a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and a panel dataset that considers 30 Italian smart city projects for 12 years to demonstrate the relationship between smart living practices in cities and the localization of female entrepreneurship. The complementary effect of public R&D investment is also included as a driver in the “smart” city transition.

The study found that the advancement of smart living practices in cities drives the localization of female entrepreneurship. The study highlights the empirical results, the interaction over the years and a current overview through choropleth maps. The public R&D investment also affects this relationship.

This study advances the theoretical discussion on (1) female entrepreneurial intentions, (2) smart city advancement (as a context) and (3) smart living dimension (as a driver) and offers valuable insight for governance and policymakers.

This study offers empirical contributions to the preliminary academic debate on enterprise development and smart city trajectories at the intersection between human-based practices and female entrepreneurship.

This study offers empirical contributions to the preliminary academic debate on enterprise development and smart city trajectories at the intersection between human-based practices and female entrepreneurship. The findings provide valuable insights into the localization of female entrepreneurship in the context of smart cities.