Does The Smart City Pilot Policy Have Environmental Effects?

With the continuous improvement of the level of urbanization and urban economic development in China,the problem of urban diseases has become increasingly prominent,and the level of urban environmental quality has also become a serious threat.In order to solve many problems arising in the process of urbanization,Government departments is gradually exploring a new type of urban development model that adapts to the current development trend.The widespread application of the new generation of information technology can make more efficient use of resources,and also benefit the improvement of the environment.A smart city is to improve the efficiency of resource utilization at the technical level.By using the new generation of information technology such as the Internet of Things,the Internet,and big data to coordinate various departments in the city's operations,By using the elements of wisdom to develop smart industries and provide efficient and convenient services to the people,building a smart city is a new situation for urbanization.The essence of a smart city is to be able to sense all aspects of the city's operation in a timely and comprehensive manner,to monitor the city in all aspects in real time through various monitoring equipment such as sensors,to conduct more refined management of the city,and to solve environmental pollution in the city problem.The current literature on smart city policy is mostly from the theoretical level,and there are few studies on the environmental effects of smart city policies.Empirical analysis of whether smart city policies have impacted the environment and the extent of the impact is insufficient.therefore,this article studies and discusses smart city policy from the perspective of empirical analysis.By using the DID to explore the impact of smart city policies on the environment,The two indicators of industrial exhaust emissions and industrial waste water emissions are used to measure the level of urban environmental quality.Regression analysis through DID.The smart city policy is conducive to the improvement of environmental quality.Through the construction of smart cities,approximately 14.4%of Industrial exhaust emissions and 16.2%of industrial waste water emissions have been significantly reduced.The PSM method is used to effectively match the data so that the experimental and control groups are comparable,and further confirms the conclusion of this article,which shows that the establishment of the pilot city of smart cities has indeed improved the level of urban environmental quality.For cities of different sizes,the impact of smart' city policies on environmental quality levels varies significantly.First of all,for relatively small cities,the impact of smart city policies on the environment is not significant,and for larger cities with a population of more than 1 million,smart city policies significantly suppress the level of environmental pollution,Large cities are further divided into three categories:large cities,super large cities and mega cities.A detailed analysis shows that the impact of smart city policies on the environment is mainly reflected in super large cities.For cities that are too large or too small,the impact of smart city policies is not significant.From the perspective of geographical regions,this paper divides 210 prefecture-level cities into three parts:east,middle,and west.The results show that the implementation of smart city policies in eastern China can effectively improve urban environmental pollution problems.There is a significant negative correlation with environmental pollution,which can reduce industrial exhaust emissions by approximately 18%and industrial waste water emissions by 25.3%.For middle and western cities,the effect of smart city policies on the environment is not obvious,the effect of smart city policies on the environment is not obvious,but it still has a certain inhibitory effect on the whole.The mechanism test results show that smart city policies reduce environmental pollution by optimizing industrial structure upgrades,increasing financial development scale,and technological development levels.The optimization of the industrial structure can reduce the emissions of 4.1%of industrial exhaust and 5.17%of industrial waste water;the improvement of the level of financial development can reduce the emissions of 5.69%of industrial exhaust and 6.47%of industrial waste water;By improving the level of scientific and technological development,the emissions of industrial exhaust can be reduced by 2.81%and the discharge of industrial waste water by 3.46%.Therefore,when implementing the pilot policy of smart cities,it is also necessary to continuously optimize the industrial structure,cultivate outstanding information technology talents,and promote the improvement of economic development.Promoting the pilot policy of smart cities will not only improve the level of urban economic development,but also further improve the quality of the urban environment.