Budapest Residents’ Views on Smart City Developments as Revealed by a Questionnaire Survey

Abstract

The world is facing numerous global socio-economic and socio-environmental challenges. One of them is climate change, which through its complexity, affects all aspects of human life, the economy, and ecosystems. One of the main contributors to this climatic change is cities, through their share of the population, use of land for urban purposes, energy consumption, and emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs in CO2 equivalent). Therefore, cities are good/appropriate testing grounds for investigating innovative solutions to complex challenges and shaping city dwellers’ awareness. At present, one of these innovative approaches is the ‘smart city’ concept, which is mainly based on the development of digitalisation, and information and communications technology (ICT). As a combination of these two statements, this article examines two factors: 1) the main challenges of Budapest, according to its dwellers, and 2) the applicability of relevant available smart city solutions to improving inhabitants’ environmental consciousness. This study presents the results of quantitative research method that was conducted in 2022 among the city dwellers of Budapest. Based on the questionnaire – thus according to inhabitants’ opinions – the paper describes the main areas of urban development that should be focused on. According to the former, the main problems are intensive pollution, the heat island effect, and intensive land use. The main smart solutions, which have been implemented and are known by the residents, have limited educational potential for raising environmental awareness.