Whose Right to the Smart City?

Abstract

Introduction. The Right to the CityThis chapter works with Lefebvre's 'Right to the City' (1996b) framework in order to consider the role of everyday and people-centred agency in 'smart' urban transformation. Authors such as Aurigi (2012), Kitchin (2015), Marvin et al. (2016), Rose (2015, and Sassen (2012) have critiqued the technologically deterministic language of smart city rhetoric, focusing on the fact that it tends to focus on ICT solutions that are applied top-down. The smart city agenda rarely addresses issues of social differences in already-existing cities (Datta, 2018), and this chapter argues that it is critical to reflect on a question raised by March and Ribera-Fumaz (2014, p. 826): "whose smartness and whose cities?". The smart city approach tends to focus on technological solutions to urban problems from the perspective of states and companies, whereas these technologies "need to serve and work for people and communities … in relation to setting local civic and infrastructural priorities" (Sadoway & Shekhar, 2014). Although citizen consultation and participation are often described in smart city proposals, there is a marked dearth of effective mechanisms and technologies for public engagement with respect to issues of distribution of urban resources and amenities such as water, roads, street lights, drainage, waste services, and proposed smart solutions to them. In the Global South context, India is a key actor in implementing a national level smart city project that arguably leads to the exacerbation of existing urban historical, material and social inequalities (

Datafication, development and marginalised urban communities: an applied data justice framework

“…New forms and flows of data are especially associated with the growth of the 'smart city' agenda in the global South (Privacy International, 2017;Shekhar, 2016), and with the affordances of digital technologies: mapping cities by remote sensing, gathering environmental and other data via ground-based sensors, development of 'data twins' of urban areas such as mobility maps created by tracking mobile phone use, etc. (Lokanathan et al, 2016;Willis, 2017).…”

“…These aim to counteract the historical 'datalessness' of such communities: e.g., their lack of representation within, and their lack of access to, urban data (Mitlin & Satterthwaite, 2013;Patel & Baptist, 2012). Examples of initiatives include community wi-fi that enables new dataflows within, into and out of slum communities; open data/right-to-information that enables new dataflows into slum communities; and community mapping that creates new datasets about slum communities (Chakraborty, Wilson, Sarraf, & Jana, 2015;Willis, 2017).…”

An Applied Data Justice Framework: Analysing Datafication and Marginalised Communities in Cities of the Global South

“…This broader picture is instantiated in the various development domains, including the particular focus here: urban development, with the expanding role and importance of data recognised within the New Urban Agenda that is intended to guide future development (UN-Habitat 2017). New forms and flows of data are especially associated with growth of the "smart city" agenda in the global South (Shekhar 2016) and with the affordances of digital technologies: mapping cities by remote sensing, gathering environmental and other data via ground-based sensors, creation of "data twins" of urban areas such as mobility maps created by tracking mobile phone use (Lokanathan et al 2016, Willis 2017).…”

“…Though coming with other labels attached, an essence of these activities has been creation of new dataflows and datasets by and/or about and/or for slum communities. Examples include community wi-fi that enables new dataflows within, into and out of slum communities; open data / right-to-information that enables new dataflows into slum communities; and community mapping that creates new datasets about slum communities (Chakraborty et al 2015, Willis 2017.…”

Connected seeds and sensors

“…Participatory Design and other civic-minded researchers are responding to these concerns by questioning "Whose right to the smart city?" [1,10,36], recalling French philosopher Henri Lefebvre's call for the democratisation of urban space through resistance and political action [27]. For example, participatory sensing is used in [3] to explore how citizens from disadvantaged backgrounds can "participate in the collection, sharing and use of data to tackle issues of their own concern"; while civic IoT is being developed to address "matters of concern and care" [7].…”