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Zhang, M., Wang, R., Xie, Z., He, H., Li, S., Cen, Y., Wu, H., & Chu, C. C. (2022). Evaluation of the Level of Smart City Construction Based on Guangfo- Shenzhen-Dongguan in the Context of Guangdong-Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(5). 436-

454.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.95.12439

Greater Bay Area. This study focuses on the development needs, future

development trends and construction strategies of smart cities in four city clusters

in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from four development

perspectives: smart water conservancy, smart cultural tourism, smart

transportation and smart healthcare, using data related to the development of

smart cities in Guangzhou-Foshan-Shenzhen-Dongguan in recent years, the entropy

weighting method is used to determine the weights of 40 indicators, and the TOPSIS

evaluation model is applied to evaluate the level of smart city construction in each

city. The evaluation of the level of smart city construction in each city was carried

out by using the TOPSIS evaluation model, and it was concluded that there were

large differences among the cities, and there was a need for city-specific policies and

reasonable improvements. The evaluation of the level of smart city development in

each city was carried out using the TOPSIS evaluation model.

Keywords: Guangdong Hong Kong -Macao Greater Bay Area, Smart Water, Smart Culture

and Tourism, Smart Transportation, Smart Healthcare, Smart City Construction Level

Evaluation1

INTRODUCTION

As a national reform and opening-up early zone and an important engine of economic

development, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is ahead of the rest of the

country in building technology and industrial innovation centers and bases for advanced

manufacturing and modern service industries, reaching the organic integration of Internet,

Internet of Things, communication networks and cable TV networks, and forming a strong

infrastructure network. The government actively promotes the development of smart cities,

and from 2014 "Guidance on Promoting the Healthy Development of Smart Cities" there are

constantly active policies to promote the reform of wisdom around the world, trying to solve a

series of problems encountered in the development of urbanization from another side. Some

local governments have adopted the attitude of blindly following the trend, without an in-depth

analysis of the construction of their smart cities, copying the construction plans of other cities

into their construction, which eventually makes the construction of smart cities around the

world more or less the same.

In the process of promoting the "people-oriented, user-oriented" smart city construction, the

quality of the simultaneous construction of a smart society will directly affect the quality of life

and experience of residents. As one of the regions with the highest degree of openness and

economic vitality in China, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has an

important strategic position in the country’s overall development. The Guangzhou-Foshan and

Shenzhen-Dongguan city pairs ranked first and second respectively in the "2020 Third Quarter

National City Linkage" ranking, and their economic development and urban influence is the

"leading city in the Bay Area". However, the unbalanced development of urban clusters within

the region of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is one of the important challenges

faced in the process of building a smart society in the region. Facing the problems of

administrative division management, cultural differences, and unbalanced economic

development in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, political enterprises are

needed to solve the challenges and problems in the construction of a smart society in a more

1 Student Academic Fund project of Foshan University of Science and Technology in 2021(xsjj202114zsb21)

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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 5, May-2022

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

intelligent way. How to improve the smart city construction of the leading cities in the Bay Area

and create a benchmark city to drive other cities to improve the level of smart city construction

has become an urgent problem to be solved in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

There are many analyses about the connotations of smart cities at present, but no unanimous

consensus has been formed. The research on smart city construction by domestic and foreign

scholars can be broadly divided into two aspects: one is to study the construction mode of smart

cities, and the other is to study the evaluation system of smart cities. As for the research on the

mode of smart city construction, Wang Juan (2014) proposed that the mode of smart city

construction should be driven by innovation, with smart industry as the forerunner and

technology as the basis, and the government as the leading gradually guiding enterprises and

public participation from the demand of city characteristics. After comparing and analyzing the

typical development models of smart cities at home and abroad, Zhang Hong et al. (2014)

concluded that the construction model of smart cities should be divided into four categories:

government independent investment in network construction, operator-independent

investment in network construction, government planning guiding operator investment in

network construction, and the model of government partially funding and entrusting operator

network construction. In the study of the smart city assessment system, the concept of "smart

city" was first proposed by IBM in 2008, and there is no authoritative index and system for the

assessment of the level of urban wisdom. Deng Xianfeng (2010) constructed a wisdom city

evaluation index system from four dimensions: network interconnection, wisdom industry,

wisdom service, and wisdom humanity, and analyzed the data of Nanjing city to summarize 21

indexes. Qu Yan (2017) argues that city construction is a dynamic process, and the assessment

of smart city construction level needs to be based on five dimensions: smart technology

infrastructure construction, management system construction, economic investment, social

risk governance, and sustainable development strategy, and the regional characteristics

presented by the construction level among cities are divided into three types of smart city

construction: leading, catching up and developing. The research at home and abroad is still in

the exploratory stage, and the research is scattered and has not yet formed a system, and each

assessment system focuses on different contents and has different advantages and

disadvantages.

The problems faced are mainly: more qualitative research, not enough quantitative analysis of

the research. Most of the studies focus on the proposed and construction of the smart city index

system, and relatively little research on the construction method of the index system and the

evaluation method and measurement model of the smart city construction level, which will

inevitably affect the reliability of the index system and the scientificity of the evaluation results.

And there are a few research scholars through quantitative analysis methods and the

establishment of models to carry out systematic analysis, but the regional relevance of the study

is not strong, and the significance of the reference to the development of the city cluster driven

by Guangzhou-Foshan-Shenzhen- Dongguan in the context of the current Guangdong-Hong

Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is not high, and the application of realistic significance is not high.

In a comprehensive view, the overall evaluation index system of smart city construction level

is lacking, and a more systematic and complete policy framework system has not yet been

formed. The article intends to take Guangzhou-Foshan-Shenzhen-Dongguan as an example,

evaluate the differences in the appropriate consumption level of each city within the city

cluster, and study the possibility and policy guidelines for taking the lead in building a smart

city cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.