스마트도시 거버넌스 내 지방자치권 보장을 위한 입법적 과제- 헌법상 보충성의 원리에 기반한 국가의 지원의무를 중심으로 -

This study critically diagnoses the vertical imbalance of power and the resulting infringement upon local autonomy between the central government and local governments during the development and operation of Smart Cities. Drawing upon the legal perspective of “rule of law administration” and the principles of local self-governance, this research aims to derive specific legislative improvements for the Smart City Act. It proposes utilizing the constitutional Principle of Subsidiarityas a legal medium to ensure the substantive independence of local governments. Smart City policies, often presented as a panacea for modern urban challenges, are currently heavily skewed toward a top-down public contest system predicated on massive financial support from the central government. In this structural environment, most local governments, lacking high-level technical expertise, primarily experience “technical lock-in” as they become dependent on large-scale private IT firms for system design and operation. More critically, they face a “chained dependency structure” where, to resolve private sector dependency, they must uncritically comply with standard platforms and financial support guidelines provided by the state. This not only fundamentally deprives local governments of the “freedom of administrative formation” to plan independent policies based on local specificities and resident demands but also deepens “policy isomorphism” across smart cities nationwide, thereby undermining the constitutional values of diversity and creativity inherent in local autonomy. Based on this critical awareness, this study legally demonstrates that the state’s supplementary responsibility should be redesigned from a mechanism of “control and management” that restricts autonomy into a form of “Capacity Building support” that assists local governments in regaining their substantive agency. Specifically, it emphasizes that state intervention should be limited to areas that local governments cannot perform independently, such as the standardization of digital Social Overhead Capital (SOC), while the state must protect the space for voluntary innovation in other domains. To realize this, the study proposes the following four dimensions of legislative and policy alternatives: First, by clearly delineating the roles of the state and local governments in legislation, the state should focus on supplementary areas such as technical standardization and data interoperability, while local governments should be granted full authority over the selection and operation of specific services through a “functional separation support system.” Second, to break free from financial subordination, the study advocates for the legislative establishment of “Special Accounts for Smart Cities” and a “Block Grant” system, ensuring that financial support strengthens the principle of self-responsibility rather than mere budgetary supplementation. Third, to internalize technical expertise, the research details the legal basis and operational mechanisms for “Supportive Technical Guidance Entities.” These entities are designed to transplant “technological sovereignty” into local governments and ensure equal bargaining power in Private-Public Partnerships (PPP), particularly through “embedded knowledge transfer” via 1:1 expert matching. Finally, by granting a “duty of prior administrative consideration” to the decisions of civic participation bodies such as Living Labs, the study derives a “deliberative complementary model” that organically integrates elements of direct democracy into administrative procedures without conflicting with constitutional representative principles. This research holds significant legal and administrative value by redefining the Smart City not merely as a collection of advanced technologies, but as a “democratic autonomous space” where the principles of local self-governance are dynamically implemented. The proposed legislative reforms based on the principle of subsidiarity are expected to serve as a crucial legislative cornerstone, transforming local governments from passive executive arms of national policy into independent agents of innovation, and moving beyond technology-centered urban development toward a sustainable and inclusive smart city governance.