What Do We Mean by “Smart City” and Where Does This Idea Come From?

Abstract

Adam Greenfield says that smart cities are an ideology based on scientism and positivism, which were dominant during the 19th and 20th Centuries. Smart cities as envisioned by salesman are therefore just a machine that will only automate existing functions reconditioned by digital technology and robots. The basis of a smart city is its digital infrastructure which improves with the appearance of new modes of interconnectivity, such as the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communication which removes the need for human intervention and Big Data processing. An in-depth study on a number of cities in Europe and North America has shown that the so-called “creative classes” are actually very sedentary and are a far cry from the myth of the globalized smart people who move at the whim of their desires.