A new paper by Rob Kitchin titled ‘Conceptualising smart cities’ has been published in Urban Research and Practice. It consider how best to define smart cities and asks whether it is time to decentre and move beyond smart urbanism.
Kitchin, R. (2022) Conceptualising smart cities. Urban Research and Practice 15(1): 155-159. doi: 10.1080/17535069.2022.2031143
I have been creating reading lists for case material on individual smart cities, or for countries/global regions, for one of my modules. I’m sharing as I thought they might be useful for others. If you have any suggestions to add to any section, or a set of readings relating to a city or region not included, please do add them in the comments or email them to me.
Dublin, Ireland
A new paper by Aoife Delaney and Rob Kitchin has been published in Territory, Politics, Governance examining the:
Progress and prospects for data-driven coordinated management and emergency response: the case of Ireland
doi: 10.1080/21622671.2020.1805355
Abstract
Internationally, there is a drive to make coordinated management and emergency response (CMER) more data-driven and centralized through shared data infrastructures and control centres. While there are a few well-known case examples of data-driven CMER, in general it has been partially implemented. In this paper, we highlight the importance of historical institutional and spatial context and path dependencies in shaping the development of CMERs within and across jurisdictions. We examine the progress and prospects of data-driven CMER in Ireland, with respect to the general landscape of inter-agency cooperation and with reference to a single key agency: An Garda Síochána (AGS), the Irish police force. To do so, we draw on 36 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders and a critical discourse analysis of 15 key policy/guideline documents. Our analysis reveals the ways in which embedded institutional cultures, structures and working practices, which are relatively resistant to change, have thwarted data-sharing and data-driven analysis and decision-making. These factors act as barriers to the adoption of smart-city approaches more generally, not just in Ireland but globally.
Keywords: coordinated management and emergency response (CMER); big data; smart cities; all-hazards approach.
Rob Kitchin is a co-editor (along with Mark Graham, Shannon Mattern, and Joe Shaw) of a new book ‘How to Run a City Like Amazon, and Other Fables’ published by Meatspace Press. The book consists of 38 chapters, with all but six consisting of speculative short fiction.
Should cities be run like businesses? Should city services and infrastructure be run by businesses? For some urban commentators, policy-makers, politicians and corporate lobby groups, the answer is ‘yes’ to both questions.
Others are critical of such views, cautious about shifting the culture of city administration from management to entrepreneurship, and transforming public assets and services run for the common good into markets run for profit.
The stories and essays in How to Run a City Like Amazon, and Other Fables explore how a city might look, feel and function if the business models, practices and technologies of 38 different companies were applied to the running of cities. What would it be like to live in a city administered using the business model of Amazon (or Apple, IKEA, Pornhub, Spotify, Tinder, Uber, etc.) or a city where critical public services are delivered by these companies?
Collectively, the chapters ask us to imagine and reflect on what kind of cities we want to live in and how they should be managed and governed.
The book is available open-access. There’s also a limited print run, with artwork specially designed by Carlos Romo-Melgar and John Philip Sage.
New Progcity collaboration has been published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers! Sung-Yueh Perng and Sophia Maalsen ask how we can make sense of the appropriation of the corporate city in the paper entitled Civic infrastructure and the appropriation of the corporate smart city.
Have a look at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2019.1674629. If you do not have institutional subscription, free copies can be downloaded from: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/NGSGJHRPDVMQX6X7YXEM/full?target=10.1080/24694452.2019.1674629
Abstract
Concerns have been raised regarding smart city innovations leading to, or consolidating, technocratic urban governance and the tokenization of citizens. Less research, however, has explored how we make sense of ongoing appropriation of the resources, skills, and expertise of corporate smart cities and what this means for future cities. In this article, we examine the summoning of political subjectivity through the practices of retrofitting, repurposing, and reinvigorating. We consider them as civic infrastructure to sensitize the infrastructural acts and conventions that are assembled for exploring inclusive and participatory ways of shaping urban futures. These practices, illustrated by examples in Adelaide, Dublin, and Boston, focus on capabilities not only to write code, access data, or design a prototype but also to devise diverse sociotechnical arrangements and power relations to disobey, question, and dissent from technocratic visions and practices. The article concludes by suggesting further examination of the summoning of political subjectivity from within established institutions to widen dissent and appropriation of the corporate smart city.
Key Words: citizen, infrastructure, political subjectivity, smart city, urban future.
Friday was publication day for ‘The Right to the Smart City‘ book edited by Paolo Cardullo, Cesare Di Feliciantonio and Rob Kitchin published by Emerald. The book is the outcome of the fourth international workshop hosted by the Programmable City project and focuses on the interrelationship of smart cities, rights, citizenship, social justice, commons, civic tech, participation and ethics. It includes chapters by Katharine Willis, Jiska Engelbert, Alberto Vanolo, Michiel de Lange, Catherine D’Ignazio, Eric Gordon, Elizabeth Christoforetti, Andrew Schrock, Sung-Yueh Perng, Gabriele Schliwa, Nancy Odendaal, Ramon Ribera-Fumaz, and the three editors.
1. Citizenship, Justice and the Right to the Smart City. Rob Kitchin, Paolo Cardullo, Cesare Di Feliciantonio
Part 1: Citizenship and the commons
2. Whose right to the smart city?
Katharine Willis
3. Reading the neoliberal smart city narrative: The political potential of everyday meaning making.
Jiska Engelbert
4. Playable urban citizenship: Social justice and the gamification of civic life.
Alberto Vanolo
5. The right to the datafied city: Interfacing the urban data commons.
Michiel de Lange
6. Smart commons or a ‘smart approach’ to the commons?
Paolo Cardullo
7. Against the romance of the smart community: The case of Milano 4 You.
Cesare Di Feliciantonio
Part 2: Civic engagement, participation and the right to the smart city
8. Sensors and civics: Towards a community-centred smart city.
Catherine D’Ignazio, , Eric Gordon and Elizabeth Christoforetti
9. What is civic tech? Defining a practice of technical pluralism.
Andrew Schrock
10. Hackathons and the practices and possibilities of participation.
Sung-Yueh Perng
11. Smart cities by design? Interrogating design thinking for citizen participation.
Gabriele Schliwa
12. Appropriating ‘big data’: exploring the emancipatory potential of the data strategies of civil society organisations in Cape Town, South Africa.
Nancy Odendaal
13. Moving from smart citizens to technological sovereignty?
Ramon Ribera-Fumaz
14. Towards a genuinely humanizing smart urbanism.
Rob Kitchin