Comparative Analysis of Brazilian Smart Cities

The general objective of this paper was to identify the configurations of selected Brazilian cities that led them to be considered smart and, more specifically, to analyze the role of public governance in the development of smart cities in Brazil. Through comparative qualitative analysis (QCA), five categories of policies were applied in Brazilian smart cities: social policies, educational policies, science and technology policies, urban planning policies and health policies. The results show that investments in science and technology achieved good participation in developing Brazilian smart cities, and educational policies proved to be significant compared to the other policies analyzed. Furthermore, jointly applying public policies for the development of smart was found to be effective, detaching their role in the development and helping in reducing economic inequalities in the country.