Embracing complexity in smart city services: A case of waste management

Our study delves into understanding the bottom-up processes within a public service delivery system by studying the last-mile interactions between frontline workers, citizens, and other stakeholders. Specifically, we focus on these aspects in the context of the Solid Waste Management (SWM) system, and a proposed intervention under the Smart City Mission, in the city of Bengaluru, Karnataka. The paper aims to grasp the current functionality and structure of the SWM system, and the role of different actors and their interactions in sustaining it. We employ qualitative methods such as participant-observation-based ethnography, interviews, focus group discussions, and review of documents related to the intervention, to understand the inner workings of the system and the potential disruption from the intervention. We adopt a complex adaptive systems framework to analyze our findings and highlight a set of design requirements and principles that must be acknowledged and incorporated into the proposed intervention to ensure the resilience of the SWM system. We also present practical implications for Information System (IS) designers by recommending relevant design features for the Smart City Intervention (SCI), drawing upon the features of an existing digital public infrastructure whose architecture is underpinned by a similar set of design principles identified in our study. Additionally, we discuss pertinent policy implications in the context of effectively governing the SWM system alongside the intervention, building on the design implications.