Barriers to Developing a Citizen-Centric Smart City in China: From the Perspective of Citizens’ Sense of Gain

Identifying barriers aligned with the development objectives and their interrelationships in Citizen-Centric Smart City (CCSC) is pivotal for devising tailored developmental strategies. Hence, this article aims to conduct a comprehensive exploration of these elements, with a specific focus on citizens’ sense of gain (CSG), a crucial component of citizen-centricity. The study conceptualizes the CCSC development objectives and identifies 20 barriers that align with them by employing a literature review and the Delphi method. Besides, the barriers are analyzed by adopting the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL)-Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM)-Cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) method. The study reveals that CCSC in China should focus on making CSG more comprehensive and sustainable in five dimensions decomposed from the objectives, “Lack of departments to interface with citizens’ feedback” is identified as the barrier with the highest causality and centrality, and “Lack of guiding framework and policy system for CCSC” is a fundamental barrier to the China’s CCSC development. By identifying the critical barriers and suggesting practical solutions, this study can help policymakers and practitioners worldwide to prioritize their efforts towards creating more sustainable and CCSCs.