The application of wireless technologies in urban areas is at the beginning of a transformation. While municipalities worldwide have invested in deploying wireless access infrastructures, the services which build up on these and add value for individuals and organizations are still at their early stage. Especially for European municipalities there is still a looming potential. This paper explores the current status of municipal wireless adoption in Europe based on the analysis of 25 initiatives in European metropolitan areas and derives a setup approach for wireless city initiatives which focuses on the definition and evaluation of innovative services. The approach includes overall design requirements, a generic stakeholder analysis as well as clusters for innovative wireless services and is illustrated by a case example of an ongoing wireless city project in Germany.