What actually is a smart city?

The smart city concept has been promoted as the solution to most urban problems—a technology-led urban Utopia (Kirby, 2013; Townsend, 2013; Hollands, 2015). Yet, if such an information-rich city does not encourage ‘people [to] think for themselves or communicate well with one another’, then it is not really smart, since the use of technology by itself is not enough to qualify it as ‘smart’ (Sennett, 2012). Some researchers have suggested that more human ‘smartness’ is manifested in the use of technology to collaboratively solve shared problems (de Lange and de Waal, 2012; Chatterton, 2013; Radywyla and Biggs, 2013). De Lange and de Waal (2013) use the term ‘social cities’ to refer to cases in which urban technologies are used in that manner. In addition, according to Harvey (2012): ‘This will require new participatory urban technologies, greater social and economic inclusion, and a substantial shift in power from corporate business and entrepreneurial city leaders to ordinary people and communities that make up cities’. A very significant interest driving smart city development is the huge profits that can be made by ICT firms, as well as by engineering, property development, and construction companies (Hollands, 2015). Firms are cooperating to get a foothold in this market, for example the Urban Intelligence Industrial Complex, involving IBM, Cisco, General Electric, Siemens, and Philips (Hill, 2013). Anttiroiko (2013) explains that: ‘What is envisioned are futuristic cities which will offer a high quality of life for residents in terms of security, welfare, culture and entertainment, and other aspects of everyday life’. The underlying assumption is that we all have the same preferences and same the definition of ‘high quality of life’ (Hollands, 2015). Business influences are enhanced by the drift in city governance towards urban entrepreneurialism. Cities have begun to compete with one another to attract global capital, and are marketing themselves as ‘creative’ or ‘smart cities’. Most smart city initiatives come from either corporations or urban governments (McGuirk, 2012). While citizens are essential to the crowdsourcing model, which most smart city initiatives depend upon, they are also often perceived as an obstacle that needs convincing of the benefits of ICT (Hollands, 2015).