Work

The smart city and its publics: insights from across six UK cities

Year: 2017

Type: article

Abstract: In response to policy-makers’ increasing claims to prioritise ‘people’ in smart city development, we explore the publicness of emerging practices across six UK cities: Bristol, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, and Peterborough. Local smart city programmes are analysed as techno-public assemblages invoking variegated modalities of publicness. Our findings challenge the dystopian speculative critiques of the smart city, while nevertheless indicating the dominance of ‘entrepreneurial’ and ‘service user’ modes of the public. We highlight the risk of bifurcation within smart city assemblages, such that the ‘civic’ and ‘political’ roles of the public become siloed into less obdurate strands of programmatic activity.

Source: Urban Research & Practice

DOI: 10.1080/17535069.2017.1293150

Authors: Robert Cowley, Simon Joss, Youri Dayot

Institutions: King's College London, University of Exeter, University of Westminster, Sciences Po Grenoble

Language: English

Topic: Smart Cities and Technologies

Subfield: Urban Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: University of Westminster, Economic and Social Research Council