Chapter 19: Evaluating the State of Art in Smart Cities Development: The Case of Greek Local Government Available to Purchase

This chapter analyses the state of art of smart city initiatives within Greek municipalities. By evaluating key initiatives and projects, technological innovation and strategic frameworks, the research study provides a comprehensive overview of how Greek cities are evolving towards smart urban environments. The study explores various policy areas of smart cities innovation introduction, including digital services provision, transportation, energy efficiency, citizen participation and performance and financial accountability and transparency, highlighting successful cases and identifying sectors needing improvement. The study’s findings reveal a mixed landscape: despite the availability of funding and government’s policies for the promotion of smart cities, both the larger cities such as Athens and Thessaloniki are making limited progress while the smaller municipalities are facing challenges such as access to funding, lack of expertise and fragmented policy specialisation and implementation to local problems and needs.