Conclusions

The Netherlands used to be considered a 'guiding country' (Nederland Gidsland) for its progressive measures and solutions (Mudde, 2021); (deVolkskrant, 2021); (Snel, 2020).

Today, the Dutch capital city, Amsterdam, strives to regain the “guiding title”, which was the first municipality in Europe to adopt smart city programs and circular economy agenda as a means to solve its formidable (but not uncommon) urban, social and ecological issues.

The examination of the smart city projects and energy transition programs suggest that the decision-makers want to achieve several ambitious goals and create a sustainable city predominantly by the faith in entrepreneurship, technology, and creativity that eventually generates the formula for the transformation and fosters the development of innovative technologies.

In the early phase of the smart city building (2009-2011), Amsterdam focused primarily on improving the city's ecological sustainability with awareness campaigns and small-scale initiatives that tested various smart tools and approaches. In addition, the nature of the programs was rather technology-centric and mainly useful for companies that provided the smart tools and completed the research. These companies yielded substantial knowledge thanks to these pilots, with a negligible impact on society and the city's overall ecological sustainability.

In the later phase, the role of the private sector increased even more, and the ASC evolved as a linchpin of the smart city network that bridges different actors and stakeholders in the planning and delivering process in order to accelerate innovations and solutions. There was no definite plan during this period that lay down the overall agenda. The ASC and the

municipality backed local startups, companies, and entrepreneurs as well as provided a platform to collaborate and improve the city's urban environment. Technology-centrism remained meaningful, yet the programs incorporated essential values such as privacy, autonomy, and transparency, especially after 2018, when a progressive green party governed the city.

Regarding ecological sustainability and energy transition, Amsterdam achieved mixed results. On the one hand, despite the city's economic and population growth, the Co2 emission has been falling since 2010 due to the expansion of renewable energies and the fall in energy consumption per inhabitant, implying some favorable effects of ASC's awareness campaigns and other programs which increased energy efficiency and encouraged renewable energy usage. Besides that, Amsterdam has made notable headway regarding smart mobility with e-sharing transportation and a mature and internationally imposing public EV charging infrastructure. In addition, the Circular Buiksloterham and the community-led projects (De Ceuvel and Schoonship) showed relevant examples of how to turn a dying post-industrial area into a vibrant and ecologically more sustainable neighborhood.

On the other hand, fossil fuels still vastly dominate the city's energy supply, which the smart city building is hardly intended to tackle, except for some introductory small-scale projects, making Amsterdam's aims insufficient to meet its demand for heating and power with renewable energy. Moreover, there is still substantial passenger car traffic, with a neglectable electric vehicle fleet in the city despite the charging infrastructure.

The slow energy transition and mixed results are also the outcomes of Amsterdam's unique approach to involving citizens in the transformation, letting the process go through with participation and consent, which is expected to extend to a broader spectrum eventually.

Furthermore, the main reason is that even though projects focus on ecological sustainability, most are preliminary projects to test smart tools and different processes.

The strategy from the public sector undoubtedly stimulates Amsterdam's startup ecosystem and provides moderately adequate solutions for some urban issues, generating successful products and booming local firms. It is beneficial for the city's overall economic growth and provides a relatively sustainable development path by comprehending the inherent obstacles of the city. However, it does not explicitly appeal to reduce the city's ecological footprint, thus not feasible to mitigate the climate crisis. Instead, the smart city project led by the ASC nurtures the collaboration between the public and private sectors without altering the mainstream neoliberal economic agenda that may continue to spawn the socio-economic issues that the city is already facing, such as affordability, lack of diversity, segregation, and divide.

The government emphasizes solidarity that is expected to make the adoption inclusive and affordable for everyone in the city. It is indeed true that many small-scale initiatives were introduced in less affluent neighborhoods, affecting social housing associations and possible disadvantaged communities. Moreover, the smart city projects aim to include a wide variety of stakeholders in the design process, especially at the beginning of the smart city projects.

However, it is also clear that the smart city projects excluded the most compromised communities and social groups already affected by the digital divide and other socio-economic barriers. Furthermore, although the ASC does not have much authority, it is probably also influenced by mainly corporate incentives and the logic of the market since the ASC's human resources and funding come from the "permanent partners," which are predominantly profit-seeking private companies (Figure 13.), that may fail to learn and represent the social needs of many. These outcomes are noticeable in Amsterdam's smart city's actions, for example, in the Buiksloterham sustainable smart neighborhood, in which the creators pledged to be developed as inclusive and diverse. Nonetheless, the study first shows that creating a self-sufficient, fossil-independent, sustainable community/neighborhood is costly. Second, the new neighborhood entirely follows the reasoning of the natural market, which in the case of Amsterdam is already characterized by overexposed house prices and lack of affordability, benefiting housing developers, investors, and the global capital, not the local communities.

A trend also seems to be crystallizing in cities like Amsterdam and Barcelona (Chapter 8.), where progressive left-wing green parties gain power as a backlash to the urban issues generated by the exposure of global capital and market trends. In the case of Amsterdam, there is an apparent resemblance between the new formation of the government from 2018 led by the GroenLinks (green party) and the shift in smart city objectives and developments, bringing an increasing emphasis on data privacy and sovereignty and the encouragement of citizens' participation in decision-making about local issues. Since then, a new top-down approach, the Agenda for the Digital City, has been introduced as opposed to the previous tendencies guided by the ASC and different stakeholders.