Where’s Wally? In Search of Citizen Perspectives on the Smart City

Thomas, Vanessa; Wang, Ding; Mullagh, Louise; Dunn, Nick

doi:10.3390/su8030207

Cited by 74 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Such a narrowly defined innovation-for-all approach undoubtedly helps active and capable citizens to become part of the innovation-driven economy. It suggests, however, that there is a critical shortcoming of such a smart city discourse, for issues like urban poverty and inequality are not discussed within it at all [163].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

City-as-a-Platform: The Rise of Participatory Innovation Platforms in Finnish Cities

2016

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This article discusses the idea of city as a platform. The analysis focuses on the forms and implications of citizen involvement in publicly-supported participatory innovation platforms that facilitate urban economic development in the welfare society context. The discussion opens with a review of the smart city discourse, which in the context of economic development policy translates into cities' need to support innovativeness by creating smart environments. Participatory innovation platform is a prime example of such an environment. The empirical section discusses three cases, those of the Finnish cities of Helsinki, Tampere, and Oulu. The analysis shows that platformization in the first half of the 2010s became a strategic focal area supported by national and EU programs. Platforms are used to support both urban revitalization and economic development, of which the former is based on representative and the latter on instrumental modes of participation. Platforms are well integrated with city governments, even though they vary greatly in terms of organizational forms and scopes. Democratic culture, welfarism, and redistributive policy provide contextual support for platformization by strengthening social inclusion, taming the growth machine, and easing the tensions between pro-growth and anti-growth coalitions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

City-as-a-Platform: The Rise of Participatory Innovation Platforms in Finnish Cities

2016

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“…During our interviews with our experts, when asked how they envision the future of cities whether smart or not, our experts offered various meta level imaginaries (such as future democracy, city as an artificial intelligence and change in city governing) rather than specific building or landscape features a smart city would have. Similarly, in earlier work (Thomas et al, 2016) my colleagues and I have considered how ordinary citizens (not experts) perceive the notion of the smart city and the proliferation of potential 'gazes' that might be produced to influence design and policy. However, the smart city gaze is beyond the scope of this paper but will be the pursuit of our future work.…”

Section: The Smart City Gazementioning

confidence: 94%

Foucault and the smart city

Wang

2017

The Design Journal

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This paper critically analyses the concept of the 'smart city', focusing on uncovering the formation of a Foucauldian smart city 'discourse'. Smart city developments and policies might be seen to support new ways of imagining, organising and managing the city and its flows. Alternatively, it might be argued that they seek to impress a new moral order on cities by introducing specific technical parameters to distinguish between the 'good' and the 'bad' city. The 'smart city' discourse reflects knowledge/power and may be characterised as a powerful tool for the production of techno-centric rhetoric and narrative where urban and societal problems are rendered docile and amenable subjects to technology solutions. The paper is based on a series of ethnographic interviews with smart city experts and uses a Foucauldian analytical approach to offer a powerful and critical alternative perspective to enrich smart cities future thinking.

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“…Much of the relevant research concerns learning within smart cities, or smart learning that is conceptualised and determined by technology, infrastructure and the production and analysis of large datasets (Nikolov et al 2016;Liu et al 2017a;Giannakos et al 2016). In contrast to this are publications concerned with citizens, either as inhabitants of smart cities or as learners within ad-hoc smart learning environments (Giovanella et al 2016;Thomas et al 2016;Mullagh et al 2014). While no single standardised way of defining smart learning yet exists, some commonalities arise in these discourses, such as personalised learning experiences enhanced by intelligent non-human agents, just-in-time delivery of information, the significance of geospatial relevance for content delivery selection and notions about socio-temporal glocality (Meyrowitz 2005) in the persistent collaborative learning interactions taking place.…”

Section: Defining Smart Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

A smarter knowledge commons for smart learning

Lister

2018

Smart Learn. Environ.

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This paper takes the form of a discussion relating to a smarter knowledge commons, having come about due to implications arising from research into the development of a pragmatic pedagogical 'guide to learning' for smart learning environments. The paper does not discuss any research findings (which have not yet been established), but rather is about attempting to discover through examination of early adopter use cases the underlying challenge for smart learning design in relation to the delivery of personalised geo-spatially relevant knowledge. Solutions for the mapping and delivery of the knowledge web are tentatively suggested, making use of an existing meta-property framework, the Open Graph. Smart learning environments focus on learning in geo-spatially relevant learning locations, with tutors or learners engaged in tasks that may frequently require the searching and selecting of knowledge content to contribute to learning or in the further production of new digital knowledge content. This has led to considerations regarding where and how knowledge content is obtained, provided, produced or shared, and this paper examines issues related to the producing, searching and finding of knowledge content in these learning contexts. Practical examples are provided to illustrate how digital knowledge content plays a pivotal role in learning design and learner interactions taking place in smart learning, both for the content of learning and as part of the process for learning.Emphasis is on open access smart learning in relation to connected and collaborative pedagogical approaches. Considering the future development and pedagogies of open-access smart learning environments, we must ask how the knowledge commons, an integral part of this learning, can become 'smarter' for learning and teaching.

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Where’s Wally? In Search of Citizen Perspectives on the Smart City

Cited by 74 publications

References 43 publications

City-as-a-Platform: The Rise of Participatory Innovation Platforms in Finnish Cities

City-as-a-Platform: The Rise of Participatory Innovation Platforms in Finnish Cities

Foucault and the smart city

A smarter knowledge commons for smart learning

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