Smart Cities: Contradictions Yet Opportunities for a Better Urban World

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-27
Author(s):  
Cinthia de Almeida Fagundes ◽  
Lindon Fonseca Matias
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Social Agents ◽  
Technology And Innovation ◽  
The Social

This article presents a critical analysis of the “smart city” concept. The argument focuses on contradictions in the symbols of urban prosperity, unraveling of the social agents involved and their interests, and an investigation of the processes resulting from investments in technology and innovation selectively performed in a territory. We propose three approaches for understanding the smart city project, in the light of analytical resources provided by the Brazilian geographer Milton Santos. Through these analyses we point to the strengths and weaknesses of the concept.

scholarly journals INFLUENCE OF THE PLACEMENT OF HIGH-TECH COMPANIES IN THE REGIONS ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE CONCEPT OF SMART CITY IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Жуковский Андрей ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Capital ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
Advanced Technologies ◽  
Management Processes ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Russian Federation

This article shows that the deployment of modern high-tech companies in the regions affects the development of smart cities. In particular, it was noted that high-tech companies not only create high-tech products, but also are an example of optimization of management processes, economical consumption of various types of resources, and also serve as one of the factors for the accumulation of intellectual capital and the quality of life of the population in the regions. It is shown that modern advanced technologies of a smart city affect not only the social aspects of the region’s development, serve to improve its legislative, managerial and social foundations, but also encourage megacities to solve the problems of efficient use of the environment.

scholarly journals Are Smart-City Projects Citizen-Centered?

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 309
Author(s):  
Sánchez-Teba ◽  
Bermúdez-González
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Southern Spain ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
The Social ◽  
Public Manager

Smart cities have become a new urban model for thinking and designing cities in the connected society. It is time to ask ourselves what kind of city we want and need. There is still a long way to go in relation to the role of citizenship in the field of smart cities. This autoethnography reveals different contradictions found during the preparation of my doctoral thesis, which studied the citizens’ perception of smart city policies in a city in southern Spain, in my double role as a doctoral student/researcher and public manager. Many of the statements and conclusions of different scientific research contrasted with the reality that I was experiencing in my daily work. My conclusions can help in the current debate on which cities we want to build at a time when the population is concentrated in cities and where it is necessary to respond to not only the economic, but also the social and environmental problems posed by sustainability

Smart City, Just City. An IHC Global Initiative in Support of the New Urban Agenda

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-186
Author(s):  
Judith Hermanson
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Global Goal ◽  
Global Initiative ◽  
New Urban Agenda

This article describes IHC Global’s “Smart City. Just City” initiative which it launched at a panel at the ninth World Urban Forum (WUF 9) held in Kuala Lumpur in February 2018.  The initiative is a key component of IHC Global’s commitment to the New Urban Agenda and to achieving the aims of Global Goal 11.  By seeking to align two different approaches to urban development – the technology driven “smart city” approach and the “social justice” informed “just city” approach – its goal is to fill a policy and practice gap with a policy framework and supporting indicators which will enable cities to intentionally use technology to achieve greater inclusiveness and equity and so to create places and spaces which are both “smart” and “just.” Too often “smart cities” focus on technology almost exclusively and when other benefits are seen as “by-products” of the technology.  On the other hand, the human-centered focus of “just cities” too often fails to think sufficiently progressively or to use available technologies to advance its goals.  “Smart City. Just City” aims to bring these two approaches together, to show that “technology” and “human centeredness” are not mutually exclusive terms and that the often private-sector driven use of technology can in fact serve “public good” purposes when these purposes are intentionally pursued.  IHC Global’s premise is that when a city uses smart technology with the purpose to achieve greater inclusiveness and justice, divisions will be lessened; economic opportunities will be more plentiful and widely available; a large number of people will be more robustly prepared to cope with natural and other “shocks”; and the city, as a whole, will prosper.

scholarly journals SMART CITIES AND TERRITORIES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF TECHNOLOGICAL SURVEILLANCE

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Rendon Acevedo ◽  
William Miranda-Brand
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Development Plans ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Technological Perspective

This article looked for key elements on how to implement a smart city or a smart territory from a technological perspective in Colombia. The study found that the achievement of smart territory has two major components. The first is political commitment at the highest level, which serves as the sponsor and facilitator of the process; coupled with the definition of public policy on intelligent territories, in a framework that brings together the Development Plans, creating economic, technological and social welfare synergies. The second is the social, technical and financial component, which consults regional realities to model and execute intelligent territory in a participatory manner.

Nonanthropocentric design and smart cities in the anthropocene

2017 ◽  
Vol 59 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Luusua ◽  
Johanna Ylipulli ◽  
Emilia Rönkkö
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Computer Interaction ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Social ◽  
Computer Interaction

AbstractWhile the smart city agenda is critiqued for its focus on technology and business led solutions, a new approach to design has been introduced: nonanthropocentric design aims to decenter the human as the focus of design. We build on relevant works in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) through discussing and comparing relevant theories in the social sciences and by analyzing design examples. This approach to HCI is necessary if humanity is to meet the challenges of the Anthropocene, the era in which human activity affects the Earth on a geological scale.

scholarly journals Seeing the smart city on Twitter: Colour and the affective territories of becoming smart

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Rose ◽  
Alistair Willis
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Data Visualisation ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Smart Learning ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform

This paper pays attention to the immense and febrile field of digital image files which picture the smart city as they circulate on the social media platform Twitter. The paper considers tweeted images as an affective field in which flow and colour are especially generative. This luminescent field is territorialised into different, emergent forms of becoming ‘smart’. The paper identifies these territorialisations in two ways: firstly, by using the data visualisation software ImagePlot to create a visualisation of 9030 tweeted images related to smart cities; and secondly, by responding to the affective pushes of the image files thus visualised. It identifies two colours and three ways of affectively becoming smart: participating in smart, learning about smart, and anticipating smart, which are enacted with different distributions of mostly orange and blue images. The paper thus argues that debates about the power relations embedded in the smart city should consider the particular affective enactment of being smart that happens via social media. More generally, the paper concludes that geographers must pay more attention to the diverse and productive vitalities of social media platforms in urban life and that this will require experiment with methods that are responsive to specific digital qualities.

scholarly journals Social Inclusion Indicators for Building Citizen-Centric Smart Cities: A Systematic Literature Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 376
Author(s):  
Jalaluddin Abdul Malek ◽  
Seng Boon Lim ◽  
Tan Yigitcanlar
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Governance Practices

Despite the rhetoric of “citizen-first,” which has been tokenized in recent years by the smart city administrations, what it means has long been unclear to many, including the public at large. Put simply, this rhetoric concerns the mindset of the members of a local community and places them at the heart of the smart city initiatives. In order to bring further clarity to this issue under the current neoliberal urbanism, this study aimed to identify the key indicators of citizen-centric smart cities from the perspective of participative governance practices and citizens’ responsibilities. To achieve this aim, this study involved a systematic literature review of the social inclusion indicators for building citizen-centric smart cities. The social inclusion indicators that were formed were verified by practitioners to suit the local contexts of an emerging and developing country, in this case, Malaysia. The findings of the review revealed that: (a) the acceptance of social inclusion indicators was mainly limited to the realm of democratic developed countries, leaders’ understanding of citizenship, the delegation of decision-making power in governance practices, the participative culture of societies, and individual citizens’ self-discipline; (b) the social inclusion indicators may not be welcomed in emerging and developing countries; (c) in the long term, these indicators would shed light on the rise of self-organizing cities that will gain popularity in potential city developments, be it in developed or developing countries.

Public Services and Evolution of Smart Cities

2020 ◽  
pp. 277-298
Author(s):  
Magdalena Suárez
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Critical Infrastructure ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Information And Communications Technology ◽  
Communications Technology ◽  
Public Health Services ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Environmental Capital

The smart city is a concept that began to take shape at the end of the last century, emerging as a consequence of the real evolution of urban requirements. Whilst in bygone eras the need arose to equip cities with elements such as security, public health services, and public adornment, which were primordial for development of said cities, nowadays the—increasingly demanding—citizenry calls for a type of services related to the introduction of information and communications technology (ICT), aside from the cities' own evolution, as well as growth of the social and environmental capital. A smart city could be defined as a city which uses information and communications technology to ensure that both its critical infrastructure and the public services and components it offers are more interactive and efficient and that citizens can become more aware of them.

scholarly journals The social innovation–(re)politicisation nexus: Unlocking the political in actually existing smart city campaigns? The case of SmartCity Cologne, Germany

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 894-915 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Leitheiser ◽  
Alexander Follmann
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Social ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Urban Futures ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Urban Commons

As a prominent and performative discourse, The Smart City has the potential to shape urban futures. Yet, its mostly top-down implementation and dominantly technocratic definition of problems raises critiques of The Smart City as the latest version of a series of post-political and neoliberal visions of urban governance. However, as smart cities are implemented into ‘actually existing’ strategies locally, they are always negotiated and translated into place-specific contexts. Beyond critiquing the powerful discourse of The Smart City, the social innovation–(re)politicisation nexus (SIRN) spells out a framework for contesting and co-producing radically transformative smart city visions and politics as they take shape on the ground. Linking the empirical case study of the ‘top-down’ implementation of SmartCity Cologne, Germany, to current ‘bottom-up’ discourses on reclaiming the urban commons, we show how ‘true’ and ‘real’ social innovation must go hand-in-hand with a re-politicisation of hegemonic logics and discursive framings. In doing so, this paper makes theoretical and empirical contributions to public and academic discourse on which governance practices, methods and policies could contribute to radical transformations towards a ‘truly’ smart and sustainable urban future.

Public Trust and Political Legitimacy in the Smart City: A Reckoning for Technocracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392199286
Author(s):  
Kris Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
City Development ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

The 2020 introduction by China’s central government of a national security law (NSL) in Hong Kong marked a watershed moment in the social and political history of the semiautonomous city. The law emerged after months of street protests that reflected declining public trust in Hong Kong’s government. Against this turbulent backdrop, Hong Kong’s policy projects moved forward, including smart city development. This article explores public trust in and political legitimacy of Hong Kong’s smart cities endeavors in the period leading up to the introduction of the NSL. At a theoretical level, the smart cities phenomenon invites critical reflection about tensions between technocracy and democracy, but this topic remains largely unexploited by empirical literature. Using survey data from 1,017 residents, this study identifies confidence in the benefits of smart cities but lesser trust in privacy and security and lesser satisfaction with participation opportunities in related policymaking. Probing these dynamics, the study finds that trust in smart city mechanics and governance associate positively with support for smart cities, controlling for ideology and issue awareness. Illuminating a theoretical and practical puzzle, these findings contribute empirically to discussions about the political legitimacy of scientific, technological, and technocratic undertakings in the public sector.

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