This data article presents a tripartite dataset that formed the empirical basis for a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the use of city labels denoting sustainable urbanism in the scientific literature (Schraven, 2021). The tripartite dataset was generated using the abstract and citation database Scopus (Elsevier). Dataset A lists 148 city labels denoting different approaches to urban planning and development. It was used to select 35 city labels that specifically address sustainable urbanism (‘sustainable city’, ‘smart city’, ‘compact city’ etc.). Dataset B references 11,337 journal and review articles spanning the period 1990–2019. All retrieved articles contain at least one of the 35 city labels in the title, abstract, and author keywords. This database was used to calculate the frequency of the selected city labels across time, and to analyze the co-occurrences of city labels. It was further used to calculate the future trajectory of scientific outputs using the Logistic Growth Model (LGM). Dataset C entails 22,820 author keywords extracted from across the 11,337 articles. This was used to analyze the co-occurrences of keywords with city labels. The data article describes the methods of data collection and curation, the analysis performed, and the potential for reusing the data for further research. The comprehensiveness of the bibliometric corpus – spanning three decades and 35 city labels – lends itself to further investigation of how sustainable urban development has evolved as a topic in the scientific literature since the 1990s. Furthermore, the robust methodology developed could be adapted to other scientific repositories and, indeed, other research problems and questions.

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SDG 11 – ‘making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’ – draws attention to the criticality of urban governance in the quest for sustainable development. Reflecting this, diverse city labels, such as ‘sustainable city’ and ‘smart city’, have been mobilized by urban actors and scholars to consider cities’ responses to various challenges of urban transformation. Consequently, this study interrogates: (1) the growing use of city labels in the scientific literature over three decades; (2) the conceptual dimensions of individual city labels and their mutual interdependencies; and (3) likely future trajectories. This is accomplished through a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of 35 city labels: we examine their (co-)occurrences during 1990–2019 based on 11337 articles harvested in Scopus; analyse their conceptual associations drawing on a corpus of 22820 author keywords; and make a future forecast based on logistic growth modelling (the underlying datasets are available through open access). The findings significantly take forward recent bibliometric research by demonstrating: the rapid growth in scientific outputs; the diversification of city labels beyond ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’; and the evolution of an intricate conceptual field made up of different constellations of city labels. The findings have implications for urban policy and practice: regarding ongoing concerns about how to achieve synergies, rather than trade-offs, between SDGs, the conceptual field points to possible ways for relating SDG 11 to other dimensions of sustainable development. More broadly, the clarification of individual city labels’ conceptual underpinnings should help policymakers and practitioners make considered choices when mobilizing city labels in support of urban transformation efforts.@en

Despite its growing ubiquitous presence, the smart city continues to struggle for definitional clarity and practical import. In response, this study interrogates the smart city as global discourse network by examining a collection of key texts associated with cities worldwide. Using a list of 5,553 cities, a systematic webometric exercise was conducted to measure hit counts produced by searching for “smart city.” Consequently, 27 cities with the highest validated hit counts were selected. Next, 346 online texts were collected from among the top 20 hits across each of the selected cities, and analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively using AntConc software. The findings confirm, first, the presence of a strong globalizing narrative which emphasizes world cities as “best practice” models. Second, they reveal the smart city’s association—beyond the quest for incremental, technical improvements of current urban systems and processes—with a pronounced transformative governance agenda. The article identifies five critical junctures at the heart of the evolving smart city discourse regime; these shed light on the ongoing boundary work in which the smart city is engaged and which contain significant unresolved tensions. The paper concludes with a discussion of resulting implications for research, policy, and practice.@en

As global cities, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing operate in international economic networks; however, they are also each firmly embedded within a regional context and are surrounded by less populous and less internationally recognized neighbors. Together they form so-called mega-city regions referred to as the Greater Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Bohai Rim, each encompassing a dozen or so cities. In the wake of staggering economic growth and threatening pollution, these cities are compelled to respond to the challenge of ecological modernization (EM): aim for higher economic value added at lower environmental cost. Cities have particular industrial and regional profiles; consequently they follow different developmental pathways. In order to attract coveted investors, green and high-tech corporations, well-endowed residents and talented workforce, these cities engage in city branding practices. In this contribution, a typology of EM developmental pathways is presented and the 41 cities in the three Chinese mega-city regions are analyzed in terms of their respective pathways and city branding practices. We argue that different industrial and regional profiles allow for different developmental pathways making different city branding strategies likely. Most cities brand themselves in comformity with what their pathway would lead us to predict, except cities with a strongly manufacturing oriented profile; the brands of the latter type deviate markedly from their current reality. Cities adopting branding strategies that contrast sharply with their historical legacy and current profile risk promoting themselves in ways that the outside world is likely to perceive as lacking in credibility.@en

Over the last few decades, China has seen a steep rise in diverse eco city and low carbon city policies. Recently, attention has begun to focus on the perceived shortcomings in the practical delivery of related initiatives, with several publications suggesting a gap between ambitious policy goals and the emerging realities of the newly built environment. To probe this further, in this article we examine – based on the policy network approach – how the gap between high-level national policies and local practice implementation can be explained in the current Chinese context. We develop a four-pronged typology of eco city projects based on differential involvement of key (policy) actor groups, followed by a mapping of what are salient policy network relations among these actors in each type. Our analysis suggests that, within the overall framework of national policy, a core axis in the network relations is that between local government and land developers. In some cases, central government agencies – often with buy-in from international architecture, engineering and consulting firms – seek to influence local government planning through various incentives aimed at rendering sustainability a serious consideration. However, this is mostly done in a top-down manner, which overemphasizes a rational, technocratic planning mode while underemphasizing interrelationships among actors. This makes the emergence of a substantial implementation gap in eco city practice an almost predictable outcome. Consequently, we argue that special attention be paid in particular to the close interdependency between the interests of local government actors and those of land and real estate developers. Factoring in this aspect of the policy network is essential if eco city implementation is to gain proper traction on the ground.

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