Creating smart cities - 131

In cities around the world, digital technologies are utilised to manage city services and infrastructures, to govern urban life, to solve urban issues and to drive local and regional economies.

While 'smart city' advocates are keen to promote the benefits of smart urbanism - increased efficiency, sustainability, resilience, competitiveness, safety and security - critics point to the negative effects, such as the production of technocratic governance, the corporatisation of urban services, technological lock-ins, privacy harms and vulnerability to cyberattack.

This book, through a range of international case studies, suggests social, political and practical interventions that would enable more equitable and just smart cities, reaping the benefits of smart city initiatives while minimising some of their perils.