Discourses and practices of the smart city in Central Eastern Europe: insights from Hungary’s ‘big’ cities

This paper intends to fill a gap in critical smart city scholarship regarding the Central Eastern European (CEE) context. To this end, understandings and practices Hungary’s five (non-capital) major cities are examined through discourse-analytical focus on relevant municipal planning documents, existing interventions key actors’ interpretations. The concludes that although building Hungary many ways aligns with trends Global North South, there also notable differences need be contextualized country’s historically shaped trajectory of urban (policy) development, especially its post-socialist institutional path-dependencies.