Are Smart-City Projects Citizen-Centered?
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