Read on Twitter
“With the exception of straight-on climate change issues, in general in smart cities, we’re not actually tackling the big issues. And the big issues have all been thrust out into the open now through the pandemic. Racism, inequality – that sort of thing.” https://twitter.com/sommermathis/status/1362539589773250560
I appreciate this piece and agree that there's a (needed) recalibration on "smart cities" as tech solutionism for, or tech deflectionism(?) from the big issues.
But the smart cities conversation is still too focused on tech infrastructure as a buyable thing...
But the smart cities conversation is still too focused on tech infrastructure as a buyable thing...
...the kinds of infrastructure we should be talking more about about are emergent, and transform/intermediate the ways we experience our communities. While a lot of the smart cities pitch is about buying tech to give the illusion of control, and at best, a return of status quo...
That makes sense if you're in the business of selling technology to gov't.
But for folks working in the public interest, the focus needs to be on the ways emergent infrastructure reshapes power and wealth in the places we live.
But for folks working in the public interest, the focus needs to be on the ways emergent infrastructure reshapes power and wealth in the places we live.
That work is happening a meta level within the corporate and tech reform movement. But I've yet to see that kind of thinking within the municipal policy community. And buying our way to modernization and reform with "smart cities" has largely been a distraction from that work.
That's a missed opportunity and a cause for concern, because, as @evgenymorozov has said, cities, and social and political structures they embody, are one of our last lines of defense against internet mediated hyper-capitalism.
