Smart governance as key to multi-jurisdictional smart city initiatives: The case of the eCityGov Alliance

Quite a number of smart-city initiatives from around the world have been analyzed and documented, and a growing body of academic knowledge is evolving around the phenomenon of the smart city. Smart-city government is seen as an important driver for developing a smart urban environment. The eCityGov Alliance in the Pacific Northwest of the USA represents a special case of a successful smart-city collaboration between nine neighboring municipalities, which combined forces to provide smart services to citizens and businesses that no single municipality could have provided alone. Developing and maintaining a collaborative governance model appears as the most important key success factor in such multi-jurisdictional smart-city undertakings. This study investigates the governance model of the eCityGov Alliance and its opportunities, and potential pitfalls. It concludes that the eCityGov Alliance can serve as a role model for such multi-jurisdictional smart-city initiatives.