Territorial Inequalities and Public Services: The State of Rio de Janeiro in the Context of Smart Cities

The project analyzes the provision of public services in municipalities across the State of Rio de Janeiro, specifically in the areas of mobility, environment, public safety, sports, education, health, and culture. Considering the historically uneven provision of these services, the proposal aims to understand to what extent public policies aimed at granting municipalities the attributes of smart cities contribute to reinforcing or overcoming territorial inequalities related to collective consumption goods in the state.

Methodologically, the research conducts a diagnostic of the provision of the aforementioned public services in the municipalities, based on socioeconomic indicators, and relates them to the municipalities’ governance capacities. For analytical purposes, municipalities will be categorized according to the mesoregion divisions of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Based on this diagnostic, municipalities whose public policies are focused on implementing smart city attributes will be identified. This study is important as there is increasing political and economic interest in implementing smart urban models.

On the other hand, urban and regional studies show that the provision of public facilities and services in certain areas of the territory may reinforce territorial heterogeneities. The research seeks to reveal whether the services under this model follow an integrated, decentralized, and cooperative logic, aiming to promote territorial cohesion through the provision of public services and infrastructure, or if they reflect a perspective that leads to territorial fragmentation, spatial concentration of services, and competition among localities for private investment.