Smarter cities in post-socialist country: Example of Poland

Currently, when discussing the development of urban areas in post-socialist countries, it is common to highlight a new stage of urbanisation known as smart city creation. Nowadays, increasingly more cities are labelled as intelligent or smart; however, there is no clear-cut definition that specifies the criteria for considering a city as intelligent or smart. The existing sets of criteria are relatively ambiguous and have different priorities depending on the region. The socio-economic transformation of post-socialist countries generated new circumstances in terms of managing cities, especially in social and governance aspects. European funding allows for building smart infrastructure. Thus, it is essential to determine whether, to what degree and on what grounds post-socialist cities may be considered smart in the entire context of their human and technical dimensions.