Abstract:The urban built environment is underpinned by an increasingly complex digital infrastructure, which is posing a variety of unpredictable and unprecedented challenges for urban governance. The paper outlines the key strands of digital infrastructures which underpin the urban polity, including the role of global technology providers in shaping the urban governance agenda around digital policy; and the emergence of smart city strategies. The paper is illustrated using empirical examples drawn from Australian digi… Show more
“…For Barns et al. (), the privatisation of urban infrastructure and services has limited the availability of data for integrated and coordinated urban management. The exchange over PWF network data availability and use, cited above, illustrates well the Productivity Commission's (, p. 2) contention that: The substantive argument for making data more available is that opportunities to use it are largely unknown until the data sources themselves are better known, and until data users have been able to undertake discovery of data.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Humphry's () Australian research shows the importance of PWF for disadvantaged populations, although many studies suggest that investment has concentrated on central business districts or favoured already advantaged populations, entrenching existing patterns of exclusion (Baker, Hanson, & Myhill, ; Fuentes‐Bautista & Inagaki, ; Shumow, ; Wang, Li, Zhen, & Zhang, ). More recent concerns have emerged over privacy, security, and data use in the PWF environment, underscoring the growing importance of the technology, particularly in its actual and potential use as a ‘smart city’ technology (Barns, Cosgrave, Acuto, & McNeill, ; Hornbeck, ).…”
Section: The Development Of Pwfmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The Productivity Commission (2017) has contrasted the rapid growth of data collection and analysis in the private sector with the slow progress of public agencies in making data available for use. For Barns et al (2017), the privatisation of urban infrastructure and services has limited the availability of data for integrated and coordinated urban management. The exchange over PWF network data availability and use, cited above, illustrates well the Productivity Commission's (2017, p. 2) contention that:…”
Investment by Australian local government authorities (LGAs) in public Wi‐Fi (PWF) provision has grown substantially in recent years. PWF represents the first significant venture of LGAs into telecommunications, a field of national jurisdiction, and thus is a precursor of wider local investment in digital communication technologies, particularly the Internet of Things and other ‘smart city’ infrastructure. However, there has been little published analysis of PWF provision and use in Australia. This knowledge gap limits understanding of the rationales, business models, and uses and impact of investment in these networks and offers little guidance for local authorities and communities contemplating wider ventures in the field of digital networks. This article draws on a national survey of PWF provision by LGAs, together with interview data and critical analysis of policy and institutional settings, to present an overview of local PWF provision in Australia. The analysis highlights some familiar problems associated with LGA infrastructure investment and service delivery, as well as some novel challenges posed for local managers by digital communication networks. Following an empirical mapping of PWF provision in Australia, we explore three significant themes that our research in this field highlights: accountability and transparency, competence in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and evaluation.
“…For Barns et al. (), the privatisation of urban infrastructure and services has limited the availability of data for integrated and coordinated urban management. The exchange over PWF network data availability and use, cited above, illustrates well the Productivity Commission's (, p. 2) contention that: The substantive argument for making data more available is that opportunities to use it are largely unknown until the data sources themselves are better known, and until data users have been able to undertake discovery of data.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Humphry's () Australian research shows the importance of PWF for disadvantaged populations, although many studies suggest that investment has concentrated on central business districts or favoured already advantaged populations, entrenching existing patterns of exclusion (Baker, Hanson, & Myhill, ; Fuentes‐Bautista & Inagaki, ; Shumow, ; Wang, Li, Zhen, & Zhang, ). More recent concerns have emerged over privacy, security, and data use in the PWF environment, underscoring the growing importance of the technology, particularly in its actual and potential use as a ‘smart city’ technology (Barns, Cosgrave, Acuto, & McNeill, ; Hornbeck, ).…”
Section: The Development Of Pwfmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The Productivity Commission (2017) has contrasted the rapid growth of data collection and analysis in the private sector with the slow progress of public agencies in making data available for use. For Barns et al (2017), the privatisation of urban infrastructure and services has limited the availability of data for integrated and coordinated urban management. The exchange over PWF network data availability and use, cited above, illustrates well the Productivity Commission's (2017, p. 2) contention that:…”
Investment by Australian local government authorities (LGAs) in public Wi‐Fi (PWF) provision has grown substantially in recent years. PWF represents the first significant venture of LGAs into telecommunications, a field of national jurisdiction, and thus is a precursor of wider local investment in digital communication technologies, particularly the Internet of Things and other ‘smart city’ infrastructure. However, there has been little published analysis of PWF provision and use in Australia. This knowledge gap limits understanding of the rationales, business models, and uses and impact of investment in these networks and offers little guidance for local authorities and communities contemplating wider ventures in the field of digital networks. This article draws on a national survey of PWF provision by LGAs, together with interview data and critical analysis of policy and institutional settings, to present an overview of local PWF provision in Australia. The analysis highlights some familiar problems associated with LGA infrastructure investment and service delivery, as well as some novel challenges posed for local managers by digital communication networks. Following an empirical mapping of PWF provision in Australia, we explore three significant themes that our research in this field highlights: accountability and transparency, competence in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and evaluation.
“…The governance of data produced and used in cities is a topic still underexplored. Earlier studies focused on investigating nature, limits and applications of data-driven actions in urban governance [2,14,[22][23][24][25][26], or rather how the access to data can inform better governance decisions and policies. Critical perspectives on smart cities constitute an essential complement to these earlier studies for exploring in-depth the hidden concerns related to data availability and governance of data, going beyond the aspects related to a data-driven urban governance.…”
Section: Related Workmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…They are usually assumed as objective traces of facts (e.g., the status or performances of infrastructures) and considered just as functional products aimed to support public or private agencies in the efficient real-time management of planning operations, local services, and infrastructures [29]. However, the supposed rational data-driven decision trees implemented in these management processes are never isolated from the political, social and organisational constraints bounding the decisions and actions of public or private agencies [23,26,30]. For that reason, even urban operational data should be considered as part of a "data assemblage" [27] in which datasets and technologies to generate and access data are strictly dependent on the context in which data are intended to be used.…”
This paper presents the conceptualisation of the City Data Plan, a data governance policy instrument intended to connect the production and use of urban data in a comprehensive and evolutive long-term strategy aligned with city development goals. The concept of the City Data Plan had been elaborated by taking into account current issues related to privacy and manipulation of data in smart city. The methodological approach adopted to define the nature of a City Data Plan is grounded on the conceptual and empirical parallelism with corporate data governance plans and general urban plans, respectively aimed to regulate decision-making powers and actions on data in enterprise contexts, and the interests of local stakeholders in the access and use of urban resources. The result of this analytic process is the formulation of the outline of a City Data Plan as a data governance policy instrument to support the iterative negotiation between the instances of data producers and data users for instantiating shared smart city visions. The conceptualisation of the City Data Plan includes a description of the multi-stakeholder organisational structures for the city data governance, cooperation protocols and decision areas, responsibilities assignments, components of the plan and its implementation mechanisms.
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