An investigation of IBM's Smarter Cites Challenge: What do participating cities want?

Alizadeh, Tooran

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2016.12.009

Cited by 99 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Smart city strategies in the UK are characteristically pursued through growth‐focused private–public partnerships involving large technology corporations, “relationships … often pre‐established with “big players,” such as Capita, Serco, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, or Philips” (Viitanen & Kingston, , p. 814): their economic growth focus resembles that of other cities in similar economic contexts in terms of smart urban development priorities. (Alizadeh, ) Simultaneously pursue strategic urban development directions that are context‐ and place‐specific. This may occur, at the city level, through the engagement of non‐hegemonic corporate actors.…”

Section: Discourses Of Urban Crisismentioning

confidence: 99%

Varieties of smart urbanism in the UK: Discursive logics, the state and local urban context

Caprotti

Cowley

2019

Trans Inst British Geog

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The paper analyses the varieties of smart urbanism to be found in the contemporary urban landscape in the UK. In so doing, it builds on and extends two currently dominant sets of critiques of the smart city: those that call into question its technocratic and top-down modes of governance, and those that describe the smart city as an empty signifier. The paper makes sense of the UK's variegated local smart urban practices by tracing the emergence of a national, state-led cultural economy of smart urbanism. Based on an analysis of smart-city programmes in 34 UK cities, we identify two broad discursive logics through which varieties of smart urbanism are produced and performed. First, the invocation of crisis forms a discursive foundation on which place-specific logics are based. Second, sets of what we term variegated logics are differently combined to build on the "foundational story" of crisis in the construction of local smart agendas. We discuss three of these variegated logics: the city portrayed as technological simulacrum; the focus on specific sectoral activities; and a chameleonic tendency to envelop previous eco-urban agendas into smart urbanism. By making these logics visible, the paper opens up a new critical space for debate about alternative future pathways that smart cities might take. K E Y W O R D S cultural economy, digital economy, resilience, smart city, urban development, urban futures | INTRODUCTIONIt is increasingly popular to think about the urban future through the lens of smart city policies and imaginaries. However, the smart city has also been criticised as a temporary rhetorical device (de Jong et al., 2015) or an empty signifier (Davidson, 2010). The question arises of how to theorise and analyse the processes through which a nebulous concept such as smart urbanism can lead to tangible urban materialities. We understand smart urban discourses as constitutive of emergent urban materialities: as Kong & Woods; highlight, smart urbanism is, "in its abstract form, … a discursive construct that will morph over time and space; in its applied form, it is an urban response to the digital era" (2018, p. 698). We acknowledge both of these (discursive and practical) aspects by tracing the emergence of a cultural economy of smart urbanism in the UK, identifying some ways in which it is discursively performed at a local level in response to state-led steering. Making the discursive logics of this cultural economy visible opens up space for debate over the nature and purposes of smart urbanism-inflected visions of the urban future. Specifically, it highlights the key role of three intertwined factors: the use of ---

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Section: Discourses Of Urban Crisismentioning

confidence: 99%

Varieties of smart urbanism in the UK: Discursive logics, the state and local urban context

Caprotti

Cowley

2019

Trans Inst British Geog

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“…Smart projects are often handled by single departments of the city administration, and then may suffer from the same "silos-based management" that traditionally affects bureaucratic organizations [18]. This hampers collaboration, knowledge exchange and learning [11], often resulting in wasted resources and rapid obsolescence of the smart initiatives, in sharp contrast with the smart city idea, which is based on the multidimensional and dynamic integration of innovative projects [57]. In this light, what makes an urban project smart is the collaboration across related city sub-systems, such as mobility and energy, rather than the adoption of high-tech solutions per se [58].…”

Section: The Smart City As An Organizational Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smart Cities as Organizational Fields: A Framework for Mapping Sustainability-Enabling Configurations

2017

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Despite the impressive growth of smart city initiatives worldwide, an organizational theory of smart city has yet to be developed, and we lack models addressing the unprecedented organizational and management challenges that emerge in smart city contexts. Traditional models are often of little use, because smart cities pursue different goals than traditional organizations, are based on networked, cross-boundary activity systems, rely on distributed innovation processes, and imply adaptive policy-making. Complex combinations of factors may lead to vicious or virtuous cycles in smart city initiatives, but we know very little about how these factors may be identified and mapped. Based on an inductive study of a set of primary and secondary sources, we develop a framework for the configurational analysis of smart cities viewed as place-specific organizational fields. This framework identifies five key dimensions in the configurations of smart city fields; these five dimensions are mapped through five sub-frameworks, which can be used both separately as well as for an integrated analysis. Our contribution is conceived to support longitudinal studies, natural experiments and comparative analyses on smart city fields, and to improve our understanding of how different combinations of factors affect the capability of smart innovations to translate into city resilience, sustainability and quality of life. In addition, our results suggest that new forms of place-based entrepreneurship constitute the engine that allows for the dynamic collaboration between government, citizens and research centers in successful smart city organizational fields.

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“…Nevertheless, it is too early to assess the long-term stability of these new arrangements. There are a few pointers that reflect how difficult it is for big corporations to stabilise their positions in cities (withdrawal of Cisco and curtailing of IBM's role in Nice, withdrawal of IBM in Montpellier) which corresponds to IBM's bigger problems in the wider world (Alizadeh, 2017). Indeed, in several cases, independent start-ups have linked up with, or been bought over by historical urban service operators.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smart city projects in the continuity of the urban socio-technical regime: The French case

Jeannot¹

2019

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The purpose of the article is to assess whether smart city projects developed in France represent continuity or a break with the established socio-technical regime of French cities. Our assessment attempts to establish a link between the main socio-technical features of French cities in existing literature and an exhaustive list of "smart city"-labelled projects compiled from twenty French cities. It reveals more of continuity than a break with the urban socio-technical regime generated by these projects. Technologies are not evenly developed along different domains: the fact that the most sophisticated innovations play out in the regulation of networks rather than in e-government reinforces an old two-speed urban modernisation. The mainly technological character of these projects is part of the continuity of a depoliticised strategy for managing technical matters. Co-production opportunities renew a tradition of local management and processing of grievances. Traditional public-private partnerships are only partially modified.

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An investigation of IBM's Smarter Cites Challenge: What do participating cities want?

Cited by 99 publications

References 49 publications

Varieties of smart urbanism in the UK: Discursive logics, the state and local urban context

Varieties of smart urbanism in the UK: Discursive logics, the state and local urban context

Smart Cities as Organizational Fields: A Framework for Mapping Sustainability-Enabling Configurations

Smart city projects in the continuity of the urban socio-technical regime: The French case

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