New paper accepted to the Journal of Urban Technology

We’re happy to announce that our paper “Place Matters: Neighborhood Effects on Smart City Service Adoption” was just accepted to the Journal of Urban Technology.

This paper examines why smart city technologies are adopted unevenly by showing that where people live matters, not just who they are. Using a representative survey of residents from four socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods in Tel Aviv, the study demonstrates that neighborhood context significantly improves explanations of smart city adoption beyond individual demographics alone. Neighborhood residency shapes perceived utility of digital services, technological proficiency, and privacy concerns, which together influence attitudes toward adoption and are reflected in actual municipal service use. The findings suggest that neighborhoods should be treated as a central unit for analyzing, designing, and deploying smart city technologies, with important implications for equity across service types.