Is there anybody out there? The place and role of citizens in tomorrow's smart cities. (September 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Vanolo, Alberto
• Is Part Of: Futures. Volume 82(2016:Jun.)
• Page Start: 26
• Page End: 36
• Publication Date: 2016-09
• Subjects: Smart city -- Technology -- Active citizen -- Urban imaginary -- Urban utopia -- City futures; Economic forecasting -- Periodicals; Technological forecasting -- Periodicals; Economic policy -- Periodicals; Prévision économique -- Périodiques; Prévision technologique -- Périodiques; Politique économique -- Périodiques; Economic forecasting; Economic policy; Technological forecasting; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 330.0112
• DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2016.05.010
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0016-3287

Abstract

Highlights: The idea of the smart city is ambiguous, as there are multiple meanings. Citizenship is evolving, becoming more and more tied to the urban scale. Four imaginaries of smart urbanism are explored, questioning the position of citizens. All the considered imaginaries locate citizens in a subaltern position. Smart city visions are largely disconnected from social needs and aspirations. Abstract: Imagining tomorrow's life implies, to a large degree, imagining the kind of cities we will inhabit in the future. In this framework, the smart city is actually a popular vision in discourses on urban development. This paper explores alternative ways in which citizens are positioned within different imaginaries of the smart city. The premise is that most mainstream discourses implicitly assume that smart city projects will empower and improve the lives of citizens. However, their role is often ambiguous. While some visions of the smart city are characterised by the absence of citizen's voices, others are populated by active citizens operating as urban sensors. Furthermore there are fearful visions of a future in which citizens will be subjugated by technologies that will hamper their freedom. This paper analyses the role of citizens in four alternative smart city imaginaries. The thesis proposed is that all four imaginaries are characterised by citizens playing a subaltern role, and hence the smart city is a relatively poor concept if intended as a model of the urban life of the future.