While local governments have invested heavily in smart city infrastructure, significant disparities in adopting these services remain in urban areas. The success of many user-facing smart city technologies requires understanding barriers to adoption, including persistent inequalities in urban areas. An analysis of a random sample telephone survey (n=489) in four neighborhoods of Tel Aviv merged with digital municipal services usage data found that neighborhood residency influences the reasons why residents adopt resident-facing smart city services, as well as individual-level factors. Structured Equation Modeling shows that neighborhood residency is related to digital proficiency and privacy perceptions beyond demographic factors and that those influence the adoption of smart-city services. We summarize the paper by discussing why and how place effects must be considered in further research in smart cities and the study and mitigation of digital inequality.
@article{arxiv.2501.04363,
title = {Neighborhood Disparities in Smart City Service Adoption},
author = {Shahaf Donio and Eran Toch},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.04363},
year = {2025}
}