Since the concept of smart cities was proposed in 2008, it has attracted widespread attention internationally and continuously sparked a global upsurge in the development of smart cities. Smart cities have become a strategic choice for promoting global urbanization, enhancing urban governance levels, solving the problems of big cities, improving the quality of public services, and developing the digital economy. In recent years, smart cities in China have developed rapidly and achieved remarkable results. The development of smart cities in China has generally gone through four stages: The first stage was the exploration and practice period, from the proposal of the concept of smart cities at the end of 2008 to August 2014. The main feature was that various departments and localities promoted the construction of smart cities based on their own understanding, which was relatively scattered and disorderly. The second stage was the period of regulation and adjustment, from August 2014 to December 2015. Its main feature was the establishment of the “Inter-ministerial Coordination Working Group for Promoting the Healthy Development of Smart Cities” at the national level. Departments no longer worked alone but began to coordinate and guide the construction of local smart cities. The third stage was the strategic breakthrough period, from December 2015 to December 2017. Its main feature was the proposal of the new smart city concept and its elevation to a national strategy. Smart cities became an important means of the country’s new urbanization, with the focus on promoting the integration and sharing of government information systems to break down information silos and data segmentation. The fourth stage is the period of comprehensive development. From the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China to the present, its main feature is the accelerated implementation of new smart city construction in various regions, and the construction achievements are gradually extending to districts, counties and rural areas. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed the construction of a smart society. A smart society is the Sinicization and modernization of the concept of smart cities, with a greater emphasis on the coordinated and integrated development of urban and rural areas, and has pointed out the development direction for further promoting the construction of new smart cities. The first appearance of the new type of smart city in a central government document was in the “Outline of the 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development” released in March 2016. The outline first proposed to “build a number of new demonstration smart cities”.
The new type of smart city is the Chinese expression of the concept of smart city proposed in line with the actual national conditions of our country. The new type of smart city is a systematic project of reform and innovation carried out under the conditions of the modern information society, in response to the actual needs of urban economic and social development, with enhancing the happiness and satisfaction of the people as the core, and to improve the intelligence of the urban development mode. The new type of smart city is a smart city that implements the national new urbanization strategic plan, has Chinese characteristics, and embodies new policy mechanisms and innovative development models. The core of the New type of Smart City is people-oriented, and its essence is reform and innovation. (The English term for the new type of smart City should be translated as Innovative Smarter City instead of New Smart City.) Compared with the general concept of smart cities, the new concept of smart cities in China pays more attention to the following characteristics: First, it is localized in China. The concept of smart cities abroad focuses on the management of “things”, mainly promoting information technology products such as the Internet of Things and cloud computing. However, the core of China’s new smart city construction is centered on “people”. Based on the actual national conditions of “synchronous development of the four modernizations” in China, it serves the new urbanization process centered on the urbanization of people and promotes the solution of the comprehensive carrying problem of the “three hundred million people”. Help enhance the quality and level of urbanization development in our country. The second is integration. The new type of smart city should focus on promoting the integration of technology, data and business, strive to break down information silos and data segmentation, unblock the “extraordinary meridians” of data sharing and integration, and promote the integration of new-generation information technologies such as the Internet, big data, Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and blockchain with urban management services, so as to enhance the level of urban governance and services. The third is synergy. The new type of smart city is not merely the informatization of government departments and business lines within the city. Instead, it aims to coordinate the “five internal organs” of urban governance through interconnection and intercommunication, vertical and horizontal interaction, especially horizontal integration at the city level, and promote the realization of cross-level, cross-regional, cross-system, cross-departmental and cross-business collaborative management and services. Transform the past “steady-state” information systems that operated independently and on their own into “agile” intelligent systems that are fully responsive throughout the entire process, at all times, in all modes, and have a domino effect, to achieve the intelligence of urban governance methods. The fourth is innovation. The essence of the new type of smart city is to reshape and recreate the city by using the new generation of information technology. It is to play a game between modern information technology and the inherent order and interests of the city. By taking advantage of the attributes of smooth flow and open sharing of data resources, it forces the unreasonable management system, governance structure, service model and industrial layout of the city to become more reasonable, optimized, transparent and efficient. In this sense, it can be said that any so-called smart city that is technology-oriented and project-driven, but lacks business optimization, reshaping and reengineering, as well as reform and innovation measures and breakthroughs in development effectiveness, is not a truly new type of smart city. Through continuous exploration and practice, the construction of new smart cities in our country has been continuously deepened, effectively enhancing the scientific, refined and intelligent levels of urban management. It has become a new concept for urban development, a new model for urban operation, a new way of urban management and a new mechanism for urban construction in the present era in our country. This article, in combination with the national evaluation work on the construction of new smart cities, comprehensively summarizes the current development status and characteristics of new smart cities in China, deeply analyzes the bottlenecks and problems faced, and puts forward corresponding policy suggestions.
