Shimizu, Y. (清水佑輔), Osaki, S., Hashimoto, T. (橋本剛明), & Karasawa, K. (唐沢かおり) (2022). Social acceptance of smart city projects: Focus on the Sidewalk Toronto case. スマートシティにおける社会的受容：トロントのケースに着目して Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10, 898922. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2022.898922
We focused on Sidewalk Toronto, where the lack of trust in the business operators declined the social acceptance of the project. There are two main reasons for selecting Sidewalk Toronto as the focus of this research. First, Sidewalk Toronto has been extensively discussed in previous studies as a representative example of a large-scale smart city project whose decline in social acceptance may have caused its cancellation. Second, although Sidewalk Toronto is a public utility, the development involved the sister company of Google, a global data giant with a head office outside of Canada. As a result, to increase the social acceptance of smart city projects, we found that business operators should rigorously handle individual data, transparently implement projects, and provide an appropriate scope for the public authority. This research provides new perspectives for a wide range of research areas (e.g., environmental science, urban planning, and psychology) that aim to enhance the social acceptance of smart city projects. This research is also meaningful for business operators who work with the community. Future research will compare a variety of cases using interviews with citizens residing in cities with failed/successful smart city projects.