Smart cities: Utopia or neoliberal ideology?

Grossi, Giuseppe; Pianezzi, Daniela

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2017.07.012

Cited by 287 publications

(215 citation statements)

References 46 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

206

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The label 'smart city' appears most frequently in the literature, and by a very large margin, although this popularity is very recent. The possible explanation for this recently evolved popularity could be that this term might be much more politically and technologically neutral; it includes also social and sustainable dimensions; and it represents some sort of utopia that could easily be applauded given the positive connotation of the word 'smart' per se (see also Eremia et al, 2017;Grossi & Pianezzi, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolution of City Labelling in the Literature

Pevcin

2019

Economics and Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research purpose. Various city labels have become increasingly popular both in literature as well as in urban policy-making. It has become relatively common that cities make a proclamation that they either are or would at least like to become, smart, sustainable, digital, creative, intelligent among other things. These proclamations have become popular for the purpose of solving complex urban problems, electoral gains at the local level, and also for marketing reasons. Nevertheless, those city labels often have a blurry line, in terms of what each label represents and should stand for. It is evident that utilising appropriate city categories and labels has become a rather complex issue. Consequently, this paper would like to investigate this issue. The paper questions the dynamics how different city labels were used throughout the time and to which academic fields are specific city labels related to. Design / Methodology / Approach. We would like to investigate the dynamics how different city labels were used throughout time and which academic fields are specifically related to labels most frequently. For this purpose, we will focus on the content analysis of topics and titles within the Web of Science Core Collection database. Findings. The evidence suggests that the labelling depends also on the time span we are scrutinising and also on the scientific field the literature being related to. Some city labels have become popular just recently, and their appearance in specific academic fields is the differentiator. For instance, the label ‘smart city’ is currently the most important label. But it has become popular only several years ago, and this label appears most frequently in the ‘technical’ literature. The research indicates that city labelling is a rather dynamic process, since some labels are gaining and other labels are losing their popularity in time. Originality / Value / Practical implications. The debate exists in the literature on the suitability of different city labels and terminology utilised. Some labels derive from top-down perspective, others derive from bottom-up perspective, some labels are more holistic than others, some are politically more acceptable than others, etc. Simultaneously, those city labels are often used interchangeably and sometimes they overlap. This paper would like to contribute to the scientific literature by providing additional evidence and explanations on the utilisation of particular city labels.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolution of City Labelling in the Literature

Pevcin

2019

Economics and Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Much of the sustainability argument has evacuated the politics of the possible, the radical contestation of alternative future socioenvironmental possibilities and socio-natural arrangements, and silences the radical antagonisms that are constitutive of our socionatural orders by externalizing conflict. (Swyngedouw, 2007: 26) For a growing body of critical literature, The Smart City is understood as 'the technological version of a sequence of neoliberalinfused new urban visions' (Kitchin, 2015: 132), whereby existing trajectories of capitalist growth are reinforced as the primary means for driving urban development (Cugurullo, 2018;Grossi and Pianezzi, 2017;Viitanen and Kingston, 2014). Innovation in The Smart City is, therefore, mostly limited to technological and digital advancements rooted in market-economic logics, while foreclosing more general socio-political innovation (Taylor Buck and While, 2017;White, 2016).…”

Section: The Smart City: the Critiquementioning

confidence: 99%

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

Leitheiser

Follmann

2019

Urban Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

“…For instance, the Manchester smart city initiative in air quality monitoring is a typical example of a climate change agenda that aims to reinvigorate the need to adopt new technologies/techniques for urban sustainability governance while stimulating economic growth [33]. Moreover, Grossi and Pianezzi [34] reported that Genoa is partnering with Toshiba and Selex to deploy smart city solutions to address the challenges of hydrological instability in order to reduce the potential for future emergencies in the area. In the area of waste management, North American cities, such as Boston, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and New York, are integrating the smart city concept into the Open311 non-emergency digital platform for real-time urban maintenance services [35].…”

Section: The Environmental Sustainability Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Are Smart Innovation Ecosystems Really Seeking to Meet Citizens’ Needs? Insights from the Stakeholders’ Vision on Smart City Strategy Implementation

Agbali

Trillo

Ibrahim³

et al. 2019

Smart Cities

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The concept of a smart city is becoming the leading paradigm worldwide. Consequently, a creative mix of emerging technologies and open innovation is gradually becoming the defining element of smart city evolution, changing the ways in which city administrators are organizing their services and development globally. Thus, the smart city concept is becoming extremely relevant on the agendas of policy-makers as a development strategy for enhancing the quality of life of the citizen and improving the sustainability goals of their cities. Despite of the relevance of the topic, still few studies investigate how open innovation shapes the way cities become smarter or focus on the experiences of professionals to understand the concept of a smart city and its implementation. This paper fills this gap and analyzes the processes for building effective smart cities by integrating the different perspectives of smart innovations and using the core components of smart cities according to a conceptual framework developed in previous research. In so doing, it provides useful insights for smart city stakeholders in adopting social and technological innovation to improve the global competitiveness of their cities. The empirical dataset allows examining how “smart cities” are being implemented in Manchester (UK), and in Boston, Massachusetts, and San Diego City (United States of America (USA)), including archival data and in-depth interviews with core smart city stakeholders who are involved in smart city projects and programs across the cases. Results from empirical data suggest that the conceptualization of smart cities across the cases is similar with a strong emphasis on social and technological innovation aimed at addressing municipal challenges in the core sub-systems of the cities, which include mobility, environmental sustainability, entrepreneurial development, quality of life, and social cohesion. The results also reveal benefits and challenges relating to smart innovation ecosystems across the cases and the future directions of their diffusion.

show abstract

Smart cities: Utopia or neoliberal ideology?

Cited by 287 publications

References 46 publications

The Evolution of City Labelling in the Literature

The Evolution of City Labelling in the Literature

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

Are Smart Innovation Ecosystems Really Seeking to Meet Citizens’ Needs? Insights from the Stakeholders’ Vision on Smart City Strategy Implementation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About