Are Smart Cities ‘Sustainable?’ Revisiting the ‘Helix Model’ of the ASEAN Smart Cities Network

2.1 Sustainability in Southeast Asia: Conflicting Norms?

Perhaps the primary discourse relevant to this study is studies exploring the sustainability element of Southeast Asian states’ practices across time. Within this discourse, studies have been particularly critical in questioning whether Southeast Asian states have ensured sustainable measures are in place concerning the vast development projects. Based on evaluations across sectors, scholars agree that Southeast Asia still faces challenges in integrating sustainability measures into its development practices. Ruland, for example, argued that path dependencies and development practices are the reason Southeast Asia’s hydropower dams lack elements of environmental sustainability.⁴³ Also, in the energy sector, scholars have looked into how carbon emissions in Southeast Asian states have faced an increase in volume due to the region’s focus on economic development and the encountered challenges of inadequate infrastructure and limitations of technologies.⁴⁴ Linked to the field of tourism, other studies have pointed to Southeast Asia’s tourism policies as lacking consideration of potential environmental elements, which consequently leads to unsustainable practices.⁴⁵ As Putra rightfully concludes when assessing the politics of countering climate change in the region, Southeast Asia’s unique norms of non-interference and persistence in undertaking development practices to advance their respective nations have equally contributed to the lack of sustainability practices in the region.⁴⁶

Although the highlight of challenges has been the dominant discourse, some studies have examined what the ideal solution could be. Studies have argued that policymakers should re-evaluate their good governance to ensure environmental sustainability.⁴⁷ Others have argued for the nexus between corporate governance and corporate sustainability disclosures, asserting that it serves as a baseline for ensuring that development in the region is balanced with careful consideration of the environment.⁴⁸ However, other studies have also pointed out that the issue is multidimensional and needs simultaneous approaches. Dai, for example, in a recently published article, called for the following measures: tax incentives, financial institution collaborations, ESG investing, and transparency.⁴⁹

Another discourse worth mentioning is the development gap between ASEAN member states. The challenges and potential solutions outlined in past studies are common problems all states face. Nevertheless, finding a balanced solution for ASEAN has been challenging for its member states due to disparities in capacity among Southeast Asian states. Past studies have highlighted the problem well.^50–52 Most have looked into the newer ASEAN states, often referred to as the CMLV (Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam), as these states still lack resources and supporting systems to pursue a balanced development approach.⁵³ Consequently, sustainability is enhanced when discussing such states. Nevertheless, no direct connections are made to how, for example, the lack of democratic practices in those states (or any Southeast Asian state) would impact their sustainability practices. As part of this solution, ASEAN established the ASCN, focusing on city actors as the basis of its solution. How has this been interpreted in existing studies?

2.2 Is the ASCN the Solution to the Slow Performing Sustainability Measures in the Region?

Given the challenges of development and sustainability across much of Southeast Asia, the ASCN has been one of ASEAN’s solutions. One reason this has surfaced is urbanization-related challenges, with cities as the primary stakeholders who can make direct changes. Arfanuzzaman and Dahiya, for example, argue that urbanization in the region is uncontrollable due to its haphazard nature.⁵⁴ A study in 2020 and 2021 found that the urbanization challenges faced in Asia mimic those of Western cities, with the larger cities of Southeast Asia, such as Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Manila, encountering the challenge of population densities.^55,56 These more recent studies are consistent with the earlier findings of Giok Ling Ooi in 2008 and 2009. Her studies predicted that Southeast Asian cities would experience in-migration and urban sprawl, leading to long-term environmental degradation.⁵⁷ In her 2009 study, she argued that such states fail to “[…] identify and implement an urban development policy framework that will link the effort at more sustainable development in a variety of sectors”.⁵⁸

Nevertheless, the city-oriented solution is not solely due to urbanization. Studies have examined decentralization as a primary factor influencing urban resilience. Marks and Pulliat looked into how fragmented governance structures and “misaligned incentive structures” are causing uneven commitment among cities to tackle climate change.⁵⁹ Amid the rise of such challenges, scholars have looked into different conceptions to alleviate the impact of the lack of sustainability measures adopted within Southeast Asian states. These include an inquiry into the potential for smart cities to be adopted in the region and into the development of smart cities as a foundation for sustainable cities.^15,60

Established in 2018, the ASCN has quickly attracted scholarly attention, prompting questions about whether it would contribute to the development of more sustainable cities. Most studies have concluded in favor of the initiative, arguing that the ASCN would catalyze partnerships and support the region’s digitization efforts.^9,61 Others have looked at the advantages of the ASCN due to its potential to establish transboundary learning¹⁴ and “[…] fostering autonomy-enhancing initiatives between developing countries that have the capacity to learn from and scale-up locally-informed, adaptive problem solving”.¹⁶ Nevertheless, some studies have been critical in addressing the ASCN. Two concerns have been prominent: First is the impact of ‘technocratic regionalism,’ defined as the technologically-driven regional integration resulting from the ASCN,⁶² and second, how achieving the ‘smart city’ status would not be able to be balanced with human rights concerns that have already become a significant challenge for many Southeast Asian states.¹² Based on that backdrop, it is clear that the smart city destination the ASCN aims to achieve for its participating cities can yield both positive and negative outcomes. The following subsection will examine how past studies have interpreted this dilemma and elaborate on the novelty of this updated study.

2.3 Revisiting Discussions on Smart Cities and Sustainability in Southeast Asia

Studies in the past have raised doubts about whether smart cities are indeed sustainable means of developing cities. As past studies have shown, there is unclear evidence that shows that the smart city approach indeed leads to urban sustainability.^1,3,5,63,64 In building up such an assumption, Charles David Crumpton, Supawatanarkorn Wongthanavasau, Peerasit Kamnuansilpa, John Draper, and Eva Bialobrzeski specifically analyzed this in the context of the ASCN. Adopting the ‘helix models,’ the study looks into specific city plans in Southeast Asia, the ASCN, and experiences with the smart city initiative.²⁰ The study highlights the disparities in social, economic, and political rights among Southeast Asian states and argues that the presence of states with authoritarian settings generates a more significant challenge for the ASCN. It is then proposed that the smart city conceptualization be within a ‘system of systems’ framework.²⁰ In this, “the complex socio-ecological interaction between society and nature and the multi-layered character of governance are acknowledged”.²⁰

Consequently, the disparity in economic capacity, social and human rights, and political systems between the Southeast Asian states is perceived as a barrier to achieving the ideal smart city status for ASCN participating cities. With the technologies proposed as the basis for a smart city, ASEAN is raising the potential for abuse and heightened cyber surveillance, which could be the case in many authoritarian nations in the region. As Crumpton’s-led study mentioned, “[…] authoritarian regimes and regimes with authoritarian tendencies seek new and better means for surveilling and controlling their populations”.²⁰ And that such state systems would impact “[…] participatory and therefore socio-ecologically sustainable urban planning and governance”.²⁰

This study builds on the previous concerns on the nexus between smart cities and sustainability in Southeast Asia. Between 2020 and 2024, many developments have contributed to capacity disparities, political tensions, and infringements on social and human rights. Unfortunately, to balance development and sustainability, ASEAN has focused on the ASCN as one of the primary means of achieving balanced development for the region’s larger cities. The novelty of this study thus offers the opportunity to reveal the profound problems associated with the ASCN, which distances itself from actual sustainability measures as its primary aim and further impacts participatory and socio-ecological sustainable urban planning and governance. In doing so, it follows the 2019 framework and highlights how the region’s socio-political developments have contributed to the disparities.

3.1 Recent Developments of the ASCN

The original plan of the ASCN is threefold: First, it will facilitate cooperation on smart city development, catalyze bankable projects, and secure funding from ASEAN’s external partners.⁶⁵ Established during Singapore’s ASEAN chairmanship in 2018, ASEAN envisioned that, despite differences in political systems and economic landscapes among the member states, the vision to develop smart cities within Southeast Asia would be perceived as a priority for local governments. As of September 2024, the total number of ASCN’s smart city projects accumulates to 108.⁶ Divided into the development areas of the ASCN, 27% of projects are civic and social, 18% on quality environment, 6% on health and well-being, 26% on built infrastructure, 12% on safety and security, and 11% on industry and innovation.⁶ At the core of facilitating smart city development, the ASCN Smart Cities Framework continues to articulate the essential features that ASEAN cities aim to achieve.

Cities incorporated into the ASCN have expanded. The pilot ASCN cities initially incorporated 26 cities from the ten ASEAN members. Since June 2024, the list has grown to include five new cities, including Chiang Mai (Thailand), Khon Kaen (Thailand), Rayong (Thailand), Sumedang (Indonesia), and Sihanoukville (Cambodia).¹⁰ Already in this list of ASCN are notable Southeast Asian capital cities such as Jakarta, Bangkok, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore. These cities have seen rapid urbanization, with common issues in their public services.^66–69 The challenges of urbanization, employment opportunities, environmental degradation, people’s welfare, and inadequate transportation facilities are common problems across the pilot ASCN cities.^9,12,16,70

In recent years, Southeast Asian cities have actively engaged in paradiplomacy to secure funding from ASEAN’s external partners. Since 2018, members of the East Asia Summit (EAS) have expressed their support for ASEAN’s intentions to construct smart urbanization in the region.⁷¹ Interested actors include Australia, China, India, Japan, and the US, which have already used the EAS platform to exert their influence on the smaller states of Southeast Asia.⁹ Australia pledged funding for digital solutions related to ASCN, with additional financing from the Asian Development Bank.⁷² Through its Japan International Cooperation Agency, Japan’s know-how has made it a strong destination for cities seeking cooperation from business entities.⁷³ China’s Belt and Road Initiative and a large amount of financial capital have also attracted considerable attention from the ASCN members, who have previously received investments for their country’s strategic development plans.^37,74,75

Nevertheless, the expansion of ASCN membership and the involvement of business entities have not addressed the core sustainability concerns of smart cities. The following section will argue that the diverse economic, social, political, and environmental indicators across Southeast Asian states raise questions and concerns about sustainability within ASEAN’s conceptions of smart cities.

3.2 Revisiting the ‘Helix Model’

When the Charles David Crumpton-led ‘quintuple helix model’ article was published, the study made interesting observations. Smart city conceptualizations under the ASCN did not correspond directly to sustainability measures. Therefore, the ideal state is that “urban planning, management, and policy processes must be designed and operated with sustainability objectives in mind and supported by globally recognized dimensions of good governance, including responsiveness, accountability, transparency, and inclusiveness”.²⁰ In alignment with the article’s helix model, the study recommended the situating of smart city conceptualization under a ‘system of systems,’ recognizing “the complex socio-ecological interaction between society and nature and the multi-layered character of governance”.²⁰

The basis of the ASCN’s problem is diversity across systems. The smart city approach becomes complex when applied to governments with authoritarian or semi-authoritarian settings, which could lead to further control over populations.⁷⁶ For the more democratic nations of Southeast Asia, the problem then becomes to what extent state policymakers consider environmental costs as exceeding development targets. This section argues that old patterns are emerging, with a lack of relationship between citizens and the smart city developments taking place in Southeast Asia. In doing so, the following explains several indicators that show the diversity between states and cities in Southeast Asia, highlighting different starting points among the ASCN members, which risks exacerbating disparities in the delivery of basic urban services. Similar to Crumpton’s 2021 point, the updated empirical data presented in the two tables below from 2020 to 2024 show that concern over non-democratic practices can negatively affect urban planning and governance, underplay environmental concerns, and neglect improvements in the quality of life of the city’s population.

Table 1 below shows how diverse Southeast Asian countries are, with a more significant disparity in recent years. Although the presented data pertain to state actors, there is a strong likelihood that the patterns of democracy, GDP growth, human development, press freedom, ease of doing business, and environmental performance at the state level are also of concern to local and regional governments. This suggests that half of Southeast Asian states are non-democratic, indicating that a hierarchical system will govern the concerns government officials focus on. The indicators consider several dimensions pivotal to the construction of smart cities. First is the 2024 GDP growth, published by the International Monetary Fund, which considers the total value of goods and services produced within the country.⁷⁷ Second is the 2022 UN Human Development Index (HDI), which considers education, health, and standard of living.⁷⁸ Third is the 2024 Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index (EIU), which considers civil liberties, the electoral process, political participation & culture, and the functioning of the government.⁷⁹ Fourth is the 2024 Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index (WPFI), which ranks states based on assessments by non-governmental organizations of journalists’ and media freedom.⁸⁰ Fifth is the 2024 Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index (EPI), which considers the state of sustainability (climate change performance, environmental health, ecosystem vitality).⁸¹ Last, which differs from the datasets used in the 2021 study helix model assessment on ASCN, is the 2020 World Bank’s EoDB ranks, which rate the difficulty of starting a business, obtaining construction permits, accessing electricity, registering property, and obtaining credit.⁸²

What has changed in the past four years regarding the diversities of the political, social, environmental, and economic landscape of Southeast Asian states? As shown in Table 1 below, the differences are deepened. Discussing the quality of human development would place a country like Singapore in the 9^th rank globally, but at the same time, Cambodia (which includes Phnom Penh on the ASCN pilot city list) is ranked among the worst in the world at 148^th.

The EIU and WPFI figures show that it is equally difficult to establish a smart city in Southeast Asia. As seen in Table 1, democracy and state protection of press freedom are not easy to implement in the democratic-deficient region of Southeast Asia. On those indicators, Myanmar and Vietnam rank among the worst globally. Observers have often highlighted the problems of human rights, democracy, and the media press as among the weaknesses of ASEAN’s institutions.^{40–42,83–85} With the two low-ranked states in the EIU and WPFI indicators, the fear is that continued repression would take place as the ASCN’s members of Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Hanoi (Vietnam), and Yangon (Myanmar) would be geared to establish the cities as becoming ‘smart’ without the foundational civic and people relations being fixed before that development. As a consequence, consistent with the 2021 finding, there is a greater likelihood that the ASCN will be used in less democratic settings to accelerate surveillance and state control.

Meanwhile, the global rankings on EPI and EoDB reveal unique developments in Southeast Asian states’ environmental and business landscapes. Again, the disparities can be seen in countries like Singapore, ranked 47^th in the EPI, and Vietnam, ranked 179^th, showing that ASEAN member states have different environmental priorities. Furthermore, the EoDB figures shown in Table 1 indicate the role of political and government systems in the ease of doing business in ASEAN countries. Singapore is the second-best country in the world to do business, but its ASEAN counterpart, Cambodia, is ranked 144^th, among the lowest.

How about the diversity of the cities of ASCN? Table 2 below provides an update of the recent ranks of cities based on the 2024 Globalization and World Cities figures, ranking cities based on the assessment of 175 leading firms producing transnational services.⁸⁶ The problem with recent findings is that half of the members of the ASCN are not even considered cities that strongly impact global services. However, several countries are ranked among the most significant cities in the world, including Singapore, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur. Several completed and ongoing ASCN projects have been implemented in those cities, with programs geared to solidifying the importance of those cities through technological advancement in the public services sector.

However, what is puzzling is the rising significance of cities in less democratic settings such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, Vientiane, and Myanmar. In the past four years, these four cities have struggled to ensure greater civic rights are maintained. As the ASCN is focused on accelerating the efforts to make these cities ‘smart,’ there seems to be a profound neglect of the political issues in those cities due to this dominant discourse of ‘smart’ development. This raises a substantial concern, as these cities would focus solely on consistency with the ASCN smart city framework, thereby further neglecting fundamental urban services. In Vientiane and other large cities in Laos, the concern remains the restriction of civil and political rights, including cases of unfair criminal trials and judicial corruption. Meanwhile, in Jakarta, opponents of democratic rule have been met with harsh measures to suppress negative sentiment toward the president. These cases go to show that accelerating development that leans towards being ‘smart’ does not automatically translate into the provision of basic political and human rights services. It also shows a strong linkage between state-level political concerns and local-level appreciation towards human rights.

The ASCN does not consider these capacity disparities. The focus has been on accelerating the ‘smart city’ development of the ASCN’s pilot city projects and on leveraging AI and technology to deliver better public services to the city’s population. However, the complexity is that cities in countries without democratic systems show less appreciation for the environment and lack proper prospects for human development. The updated data from the 2020 study show that the same conclusions have been reached. The disparities will only lead to greater differences among ASCN members, given the absence of sustainability measures in ASCN projects. Perhaps two case studies of concern are in Yangon and Phnom Penh. In Yangon, prosecutions continue amid the military junta’s crackdown on democratic voices. Meanwhile, despite the acceleration of development in Phnom Penh, this has been met with an increase in money laundering, concerns over foreign debt, and rising unemployment, indicating that smart cities’ focus on transportation services remains unbalanced with other essential services.

Therefore, the ‘smart city’ of ASCN may not be the best development course for Southeast Asian states. Past studies have noted that the characteristics of smart cities are often referenced in contemporary urban planning.^87–89 The ‘smart city’ discourse severely underestimates the long process it takes for cities to develop and views cities as if they could be ‘updated’ just like programs and technologies.^90,91 The ASCN does not discriminate among the diversities of ASEAN member states and therefore does not differentiate based on the needs of more extensive, smaller, democratic, or authoritarian settings.

The problem with diverse landscapes such as ASEAN is that everything ‘smart’ can easily deepen authoritarian tendencies and undermine sustainability objectives.²⁰ Another issue is the lack of acknowledgment that the starting points of these cities are different, with some already building the foundations of smart cities since the 1960s.⁹⁰ As a consequence, it is expected that, after observing recent data in the past four years, poor cities would most likely see a more substantial deterioration of sustainability norms, as anticipated in past studies.^92–94 The case of Hanoi, Vietnam, is interesting given the numerous criticisms citizens have expressed about the increase in surveillance cameras in the city. Although intended to protect and maintain order on public roads, there have been concerns that images are being misused to monitor private lives and steal private data.

Combined, the presented case studies from different ASEAN cities align with Crumpton’s concerns about the lack of consideration for inter-contextual differences. By imposing the ASCN provisions and focusing on targeted smart city elements, this risks the region falling further from sustainability practices that ensure basic services are provided to people.