Through an evolution from an emerging marketing narrative to a geographical fact around the globe, smart city is increasingly understood as a city’s effort to make itself smart. There seems no single city in the world to be commonly recognized as a real smart city yet, albeit many cities have already tried hard in this missionary commitment. Yet some common features can still be seen and identified, particularly from the urban governance perspective. This article explores the practice of smart city construction in China through a lens of governance by observing the interactive involvement of key stakeholders in the process. By taking three cities (Hangzhou, Wuhan, and Shanghai) in China as study cases, a conceptual framework is established in which three sets of actors, i.e., ICT-related enterprises, government, and civil society, and, accordingly, three types of approaches, i.e., ICT-led, planning-led, and place-making-and-community-oriented, are identified. It is found that the evolution of smart city construction rather follows a nonlinear trajectory and is very dependent on whether or not the primary actors and related stakeholders can form an affirmative acting power in triggering the city’s implementation. In other words, there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to smart city construction. Each city may have its specialization in smartness based on awareness of and respecting its unique existing setting. The empirical study also shows that smart city construction tends to be converged in recognition that the core of smart city is not the smartness of technology but the smartness of all institutions and people enabled to utilize smart tools properly and efficiently in pursuit of people’s well-being, institutional capacity building, and better spatial arrangement towards a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive city in and for the future. From a geographical perspective, that is how to build a smart urban space to make the city a better place to not just accommodate but facilitate and meet people’s increasing demand for a better life in their living places.

Innovation clusters have been the key concept underlying economic development theory and practice since the concept was re-energized in the 1990s. Worldwide efforts promoting cluster development are supposed to be informed by research on cluster dynamics. The plethora of articles and reports on this globally hyped concept often add to the confusion, calling for a systematic synthesis. In academia, the discussion of innovation clusters is characterized by separate literature dealing with agglomeration, institution, and built-environment. This literature review addresses each of those three dimensions, respectively, by discussing both classic perceptions and potential directions for future research.

As the basic cell of social structures and spatial units, rural settlement is now experiencing profound changes through the rapid urbanization process underway in China, particularly in peri-urban areas which serve as the main platform and battlefield for urban–rural integration in China’s latest round of new urbanization. Therefore, how to achieve better planning for rural settlement in peri-urban areas is becoming a pressing and paramount research agenda. This paper attempts to explore the possible reasons for the underperformance of planning practice for rural settlement in peri-urban areas of China by taking the Mentougou district of Beijing as a case study. Following a quick and comprehensive review of planning in Mentougou district, a systematic and critical evaluation is then conducted accordingly. It shows that the plans generally play a positive role in development orientation and implementation. Yet, there is still a lot of room for improvement, particularly in the following aspects: (1) lack of initiative and innovation at the local level; (2) lack of long-term vision and consistent implementation; (3) lack of rationale-oriented approach; (4) lack of scientific and in-depth research; (5) lack of multi-stakeholder participation. As a way forward, this paper thus proposes a revised planning scheme for local practice, including classification of typologies and the customized planning design for each typology. At last, this paper calls for more in-depth scientific research on some key topics in the planning field, domestically and internationally.