The Smart City Promise: Investigating the Inclusiveness of Smart City Initiatives in Amsterdam
MA Media Studies thesis for New Media and Digital Culture University of Amsterdam
26 June 2017
Phillip Morris, pjm360@gmail.com Student Number: 10890831
Supervisor: dhr. dr. N.A.J.M. Niels van Doorn Second Reader: dr. M.D. Marc Tuters
ABSTRACT
Cities have played an important role in the course of human history, and technology has played an important part in shaping cities. Cities use different labels depending on their development focus, with the latest trend to be seen as utilizing technology to become a "smart city". Smart cities often promise inclusive citizen engagement and increased quality of life. In practice this means developing a local tech economy to spur the innovation need to solve urban challenges, and capture some of the economic success of Silicon Valley. While a focus on technology can boost the local economy, the current state of social equality in Silicon Valley indicates that it is not the best approach for cities wanting to avoid
marginalizing segments of its population which has the effect of denying them their right to participate in making the city. The city of Amsterdam is a top ranked smart city, guided by the principles of "openness, entrepreneurship, collaboration and inclusion". The promise of being inclusive is not being met which then endangers the promise of raising the quality of life for the marginalized. This appears to be a symptom of low overall citizen engagement. So far only those with high digital literacy appear to be engaging with Amsterdam as a smart city. By evaluating local smart city initiatives, and speaking with residents, this thesis found that a lack of knowledge about the existence of smart city initiatives was the main barrier to citizen engagement.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction 5
1.1 Statement of The Problem 7
1.1.1 The Silicon Valley Divide 7
1.2 Thesis Outline 9
2 Theoretical Framework 11
2.1 Society and the City 11
3 Literature Review 16
3.1 Enabling the Right to the City 16
3.2 Technology and the City 19
3.2.1 Historical Context for The Smart City 20
3.2.2 The Smart City 22
3.2.3 Smart City Strategies 23
3.2.4 Right to the Smart City 28
3.3 The Proto-Smart City 32
3.3.1 Designing the Technopolis 32
3.3.2 Outcome of the Technopolis Path to Development 34
4 Contextual Background 38
4.1 The Situation in The Netherlands 38
4.2 Amsterdam as a Smart City 40
4.2.1 The Structure of Amsterdam Smart City 42
4.2.2 Smart City Benchmarking in Amsterdam 42
4.2.3 Evaluating Websites 45
5 Research Method 47
5.1 City Selection 47
5.2 Qualitative Data Sources 48
5.3 Limitations 51
6 Results 53
6.1 The Websites 53
6.1.1 The Amsterdam Economic Board 54
6.1.2 Amsterdam Smart City 56
6.1.3 The Knowledge Mile 61
6.2 Amsterdam's Strategic Smart City Choices 65
6.2.1 Initiative Analysis 69
6.3 Citizen Perspective 74
7 Discussion 76
1 Introduction
Cities have played an important role in the course of human history, and technology has played an important part in shaping cities. Once our ancestors developed the technology to grow food, they were able to settle permanently in one place and form early cities. Large numbers of people, gathering in the same area, encouraged the exchange of ideas that allowed technology to advance, and be incorporated into the functioning of the city. Along with technology cities were shaped by their economy. A port city whose economy runs on trade encourages a different society to develop than one centered around a university. Cities now take monikers depending on their development focus and vision for what a good city should be, and often economic growth is the means to reach that vision. The area around San Francisco known as Silicon Valley got its name by being a hub for technology, that, as the name suggests, requires large amounts of silicon (Gromov). As policymakers in the region focused on economic growth through the technology industry they were blind to the growing inequality around them.
Growing up black in America led me to conclude that economic growth did not mean much to the lives of society's marginalized groups, which in America means not being white, male, Christian and straight. My lived experience matches Schmelzer's insight that the focus on economic growth masks the realities of life on the ground for marginalized people. Past a certain point, which for most Western countries was in the 1970's, growth stops improving the overall quality of life (Schmelzer 263). My family was comfortably middle class, but we often lived in ethnic neighborhoods where poverty was prevalent. Despite the near constant GDP growth in the US at the time (McCulla, Holdren and Smith 16), the quality of life did not improve at a consistent rate. People got raises, but much of that extra income got absorbed by rising prices. In fact, things got worse for many of the people on government assistance, because their benefits were not keeping up with price increases. When I visit places I used to live, the difference between poor and affluent neighborhoods is much the same as I remember from my childhood; the poor neighborhoods are packed with
working-class people of color.
I currently live in the city of Amsterdam, which is a leading example among the world's smart cities (Cohen, Top Ten Smartest Cities). Amsterdam has been a leading finance center for centuries, which has allowed it to also become a center for new industries, technology, and innovations (Johansson, Karlsson and Stough 219). From the 1970s onward,
the Dutch have made cities more people friendly, most famously by making pedestrians and bikes the priority on the roads, and this has raised the quality of life significantly (Hajer and Ton 117). The population has grown to include over 800,000 people from 180 nationalities, and from all walks of life (iAmsterdam, Facts & Figures). But there is a great feeling when living in the city that cannot be captured in facts and figures and must be experienced instead. As Amsterdam pursues its goal of being a smart city, I hope that unquantifiable something survives.
In an interview for Amsterdam Innovation Arena (the division of Amsterdam Arena, tasked with incorporating new technology into the building) the mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan said the city wants to be smart by applying technological solutions to urban problems in collaboration with citizens, and importantly, all citizens. My motivation in this thesis is to assess how well Amsterdam's smart city development fares at meeting the promise of improving the lives of citizens by examining their inclusion in the smart city development process. I would like to know if only certain groups in Dutch society are engaging with Amsterdam as a smart city, and if this is the case then why. My thesis follows the understanding of the European Institute for Gender Equality that groups of people can be subject to marginalization depending on the culture and context of society, and that it can be based on a wide range of characteristics including ethnicity, sexual orientation, education or income.
The academic literature on the effects of smart city development is minimal (Winden; Vanolo). As an example, I found one study that also examined ASC but focused on the technical side of ASC projects (Winden et al.). This required that I broaden my theoretical framework to include other fields. Cities are complex phenomena which makes an
interdisciplinary approach to studying them more comprehensive. As a result, this thesis draws the principle of the "right to the city" from the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre (Writing on Cities), which states that the city making process should be open to everyone, the work of urban theorist Richard Florida, and incorporates some economic theory. My hypothesis is that a new characteristic for marginalization are developing related to
technological ability (Florida; Straubhaar et al.) and that certain groups underrepresented in the technology industry are engaging less with smart city initiatives, and are thus not making use of their right to the city to shape the city's future. To that end, this thesis will contribute to the smart city field by answering the question:
How can Amsterdam's smart city development be improved to support greater social inclusion?
As part of answering this question I needed to answer the following sub-questions: 1. What is Amsterdam's approach to smart city development?
2. Why is greater social inclusion need? 1.1 Statement of The Problem
Many cities refer Silicon Valley as an example of smart city development because the transition involves the development of a local tech economy (Picon 149; Florida). While Silicon Valley has become a successful economic region for the development of innovative technologies, it is also a region of societal conflict between those inside and outside of the tech industry. This section will illustrate why Silicon Valley is not the best example to follow for cities that want to spread the benefits of smart development equitably.
1.1.1 The Silicon Valley Divide
Silicon Valley historian Gregory Gromov marks the development of the area around San Francisco, California into Silicon Valley with Stanford University's financial troubles in the mid-20th century. In this period, the dean of the engineering department, Frederick Terman, leased university land to tech companies in order to generate additional revenue. Terman's efforts paid off in a big way as the region developed into a high-tech hub that is now home to tech industry giants like Google, Apple, and Cisco Systems to name a few (Gromov) These companies are filled with what Richard Florida calls the "creative class" of workers. As the name suggests, these people engage in work that is intellectually heavy to "create meaningful new forms" (Florida 34). This class includes the programmers at Google, the professors at Stanford, doctors, writers, artists, and other workers engaged in complex problem solving for employment as opposed to manual or service industry jobs (Florida 3).
While economically successful, Silicon Valley's development has come with a host of social issues stemming from wealth concentrating in the technology industry which is hard for certain groups, like minorities and women, to join. In the article "Why Can't Silicon Valley Solve Its Diversity Problem", Anna Wiener explores some of the challenges minority candidates face when trying to get hired in the white-dominated industry. In the article, Facebook's global director of diversity claims that the diversity problem will be solved once
public education updates itself to give students the necessary skills. A recent black, female, computer-science graduate interviewed in the article considers that statement a
miscategorization of the issue, and instead feels that the tech industry is missing out on diverse talent due to prejudice and looking in the wrong places. According to Wiener, only five percent of the highly skilled positions in the tech industry are filled by blacks and latinos in the US, despite these groups making up eighteen percent of the yearly computer-science graduates. Companies actually interested in increasing inclusiveness, run into the issue of often relying on word of mouth, in a white-dominated community, and coverage in outlets, with self-selected users that tend to be white, for advertising open positions (Wiener).
The problems of Silicon Valley go beyond the workplace diversity. The large amounts of money flowing into the area's technology companies drives of the cost of living faster than other industries can match. Community organization De-Bug works as an advocate for those in the region whose lives are being negatively impacted. Part of their mission to deliver community-based justice involves collecting stories from the people they serve. People have shared stories like engaging in illegal activities to just make ends meet despite having a full-time job, and having to live in their car while making $58,000 a year (Abbey-Lambertz, This Is What It's Like...). The core theme of the stories is that the benefits of Silicon Valley becoming a hub for technological innovation, are not being distributed in an equitable fashion to all segments of society. The high profit margins for companies operating in the digital economy allow them to pay their employees much higher salaries than other businesses that may only operate locally within the city (Gromov). When left on their own, services like housing and groceries, target the higher income technology workers to the detriment of everyone else in the city.
Being in the US, Silicon Valley developed in a context that has a long history of social division, thanks to the institutionalized racism that was a part of everyday American life until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The formation of the Black Lives Matter social movement in response to police violence against the black community shows that the effects of such policies can have long lasting effects. Since the global shift towards the digital economy began, many other hubs of technology have developed around the world that cities can look to for inspiration on their path to becoming smart that are more inclusive like Austin, Copenhagen, or Amsterdam (Florida; Boyd, The 10 Smartest Cities in Europe). My concern regarding the development of smart cities, is that regardless of the inspiration, if they are built on foundations that are excluding some people from taking part in the development
process, those people will also be excluded from the future city to come.
1.2 Thesis Outline
This thesis will be structured in the following manner. Chapter 2 provides the
theoretical framework for my research. This thesis mostly draws from Lefebvre's concept of the right to the city, Florida's work on the rise of the creative class, theory on the pervasive influence of economics on society.
Chapter 3 contains an extensive literature review. The first section elaborates on the practical implications of the theoretical framework to show what is needed to enable citizens to make use of their right to the city. The second section provides a review of literature that relates to the development of the smart city. It also contains of discussion of the strategic choices cities developing as smart cities must make. This section ends with an examination of the forces at work in a smart city that affect the right to the city. Chapter 3 ends with an example of exclusive technological growth from the city of Austin's previous development as a "technopolis".
Chapter 4 gives contextual background to help in understanding Amsterdam's development as a smart city. The first section includes information on the Netherlands as a whole. The second section focuses Amsterdam specifically including the principles for the city's development as a smart city as given by the mayor. It then moves to practical details on the structure of bottom-up smart city projects and explains why as a result of my interviews, the specific benchmarking method used to track the city's smartness.
Chapter 5 details my research methods. It begins with an explanation of why the research was conducted as a single case study. Then my sources of data are given. This thesis relied heavily on interviews with representatives of Amsterdam's smart city initiatives and people in the city, in addition to textual sources. This chapter ends the perceived limitations of my research.
Chapter 6 presents the results of my research. It begins by detailing the websites of the organizations studied. That is followed by an in-depth presentation of my interviews with representatives associated with Amsterdam's development as a smart city. This chapter ends with a summary presentation of the relevant results of my interviews with people in the city. An effort was made to present the information contained in this chapter as unbiased data. In this chapter, I am able to answer my first subquestion.
Chapter 7 analysis the data presented in Chapter 6 with the theoretical framework presented in Chapter 2, and relevant concepts from the literature review in chapter 3. This chapter is provides the answers to the final two questions of this thesis.
Chapter 8 concludes this thesis by briefly highlighting the results of my thesis. This chapter also looks forward towards future possible research.
2 Theoretical Framework
This chapter provides the theoretical framework for my research. This thesis mostly draws from Lefebvre's concept of the right to the city, Florida's work on the rise of the creative class, theory on the pervasive influence of economics on society.
2.1 Society and the City
Social interaction has long been accepted as an important component of human development. The city plays an important role in facilitating such interactions by functioning as a focal point to bring people together (Lefebvre; Florida). British classicist Peter Garnsey points out that, for Aristotle, the city-state was considered to be pinnacle expression of human nature (105). It allowed people to develop themselves further than would be possible alone by participation in politics. Politics is the process through which society decides on its version of "the good life". In authoritarian systems, the good life is decided by a small portion of the population, potentially even a single supreme leader. In democratic societies the good life is meant to be determined by the will of the people. In Aristotle’s city not every member of the community was given an equal standing, which led to the marginalization of women, and slaves (Garnsey 114). Aristotle justified the exclusion of women and slaves from the city making process on the grounds that they were incapable of higher thinking, and the most value they could contribute to society was to handle the tasks that would otherwise distract free men (Garnsey 105). The Greeks have left a lasting influence on western culture, exemplified in the democratic political system, but civic society has become more inclusive since Aristotle's time. In the constitution of most developed nations, every citizen is given equal standing to engage with civic life. In practice, making use of that right takes effort.
In the 1960's French philosopher Henri Lefebvre wrote The Right to the City in which he articulated that participation in the development of the city was the universal right of its residents (Writing on Cities). The Right to the City evolved from Lefebvre's examination of daily life, and as an extension of Marx's philosophy on the struggles of the working class (Butler). As Lefebvre saw it, until the 20th century the working class had very little power to shape the city. It was his hope that the political upheaval he was witnessing in Paris at the time, driven by students and workers, would make space for the working class to wrest political control of the city away from the developers and bankers (Lefebvre, Urban Revolution 78). Social groups work with, and against each other in a constant struggle to
shape society. Every group justifies its existence through its ideology, though some groups are able to successfully integrated their ideology into society so that it reaches hegemonic status and becomes institutionalized. If that ideology has the effect of excluding entire groups of people from the process of forming society then it is not just, and eventually, it will lead to a rupture (Lefebvre, Urban Revolution). The masses of Paris did not organize their efforts in a way that lead to radical changes in the functioning of society, but another, more
homogenous group has, economists.
Economists, and particularly those with neoliberal world views, have effectively integrated their ideology into society. Economists had only a small role in policy making at the beginning of the 20th century, but their importance expanded greatly in the US and UK during World War II as their expertise was needed to coordinate and finance the war effort (Hirschman and Berman 791). Following the war, liberal economists effectively
institutionalized their political position. Liberalism is the ideological belief that society is best organized through the free choices of individuals, that are assumed to be making rational decisions out of their own self-interest. A liberal government limits economic and social interventions, to maximize the freedom of its citizens (Jessop 453). Policymaking requires a myriad of ideas and possibilities be reduced to a manageable set of options (Hirschman and Berman 791). Economics is effective at this because it can translate complex problems into numbers that either go up or down depending on policy decisions. The tools for measuring the state of the economy were developed from the point of view of business, not people. This fact was hidden from public view as the political system as a whole subtly shifted to be business orientated over decades (Schmelzer 265). There are many ways to measure the economy, but the most popular measure for economic benchmarking is the gross domestic product (GDP), which tracks the total amount of goods and services produced. GDP has been criticized as flawed, even for measuring economic output, because it does not account for many segments of the economy, particularly the unpaid domestic labor predominantly done by women. This was not universally the case pre-WW II when some economists did account for domestic labor, but was lost through global standardization of GDP measurements which made it even easier to adopt (Schmelzer 265). The goal for policymakers using GDP is to institute policies that lead to GDP growth, because that means there is more money in the economy and that money is assumed to improve citizens' quality of life, Schmelzer calls this "the growth paradigm".
Schmelzer critiques the focus on economic growth because it masks the realities of life on the ground (263). Broadly speaking, since adopting the growth paradigm human lives have improved in key areas like health and education (Ben-Ami). Though past a certain point, which for most western countries was in the 1970's, growth stops improving the overall quality of life (Schmelzer 265). This was not recognized by US and UK politicians in the 1980s who pushed for even more liberalization in what we now call neoliberalism. Neoliberalism promotes a further reduction of state services and regulations in favor of market developed solutions (Jessop 461). Jessop found that neoliberalism in its purest form was found at the national level, but at the level of the city managing the issues for social exclusion and cohesion require modification (463). The version most relevant to this thesis is "neocommunitarianism", which makes room for the "social economy" between the forces of the market and the state (Jessop 463). Neocommunitarianism is marked by the push to develop bottom-up economic and social mobilization. Among the goals of
neocommunitarianism are "to create local demand, to re-skill the long-term unemployed and reintegrate them into an expanded labor market, to address some of the problems of urban regeneration (eg in social housing, insulation, and energy-saving), to provide a different kind of spatiotemporal fix for small and medium-sized enterprises, to generate trust within the community, and to promote empowerment"(Jessop 463). As part of reducing the role of the state neoliberals favor public-private partnerships as a market enabling strategy supported by state resources (Miraftab 91). If entered into without careful forethought public-private partnerships can diminishe the regulatory power of the government to the point where consideration for the public at large is non-existent in their endeavors (Miraftab 98).
Human rationality is a core assumption in most economic theories, including
liberalism and neoliberalism (Hirschman and Berman 794). But humans rarely act rationally as individuals or collectives. Businesses, on the other hand, excel at making rational,
self-interested decisions that put them in an elevated position of power when they need to interact with the other segments of society. The social world is actively being created all the time in a way that cannot be totally captured by theories or social structures. Marxist
tradition has it that political struggle is capable of changing even the most steadfast social constructs, however, that requires cohesion and sustained efforts (Butler 26). When the interests of people run counter to the interests of business, the state is needed to balance between interests of the parties (Miraftab), but its ability to be balanced has been
compromised by the growth paradigm, that is at work in the general population as well (Hirschman and Berman).
GDP and economic growth, are attractive to politicians for their ability to mask societal problems and unite political enemies (Schmelzer 266). The promise that growth would improve lives, gave people enough hope things would get better, for a long enough period of time, the inequalities between large segments of the population were allowed to balloon (Schmelzer 266). Economic growth has been given different labels to present it as incorporating the qualitative aspects society values such as "green", "sustainable",
"inclusive", and "smart", but the underlying concept remains relatively unchanged
(Schmelzer 268; Vanolo 887). Zelda Bronstein considers economic growth, "code for the joint enlargement of capital and construction", that even when "smart" marginalizes significant portions of the population to secure the highest returns on investment (31). For most industries profit can come from an increase in production output, or a reduction in labor costs. Either option can lead to increased profits, but they have very different effects on social equality (Altvater 74). Schmelzer reaches the conclusion that measuring the inequality in a society is a much better indicator of improvements to quality of life (263). Examining social equality instead of economic growth paints a grimmer picture of the history of life in the city. The Greek city-state of Aristotle flourished through slavery (Garnsey 3); Lefebvre's Paris allowed those with economic capital to prosper from the work of others; and now technology has advanced to allow the creative class to prosper separately from the other workers in society (Florida).
In the introduction to his book Cities and the Creative Class Richard Florida lays out his argument that cities have been important channeling creative energy "into technical and artistic innovations, new forms of commerce and new industries, and evolving paradigms of community and civilization"(1). At the 2013 Smart City Expo World Congress, Florida frames the transition to a technology driven, digital economy as a new industrial revolution. The first industrial revolution moved the economy from agriculture in rural areas to
manufacturing in cities. Low educated manual workers were the backbone of the first industrial revolution, with very few people employed in as the creative class. The number of people employed in creative work has been accelerating with the transition to the digital economy. That being said, all human beings have some level of creativity in them that would allow them to become members of the creative class if given the chance (Florida 8).
productive. For example, thanks to automation one man with a computer can replace hundreds of workers. Depending on how you measure the health of the economy, the same advancements in automation can also be framed as shrinking the economy by reducing the amount of jobs available to low-skilled workers, which in turn reduces their economic participation. Thus, to me to get to the truth in society the focus should not be on economic growth, either for or against it. It does not matter to the person who is retiring if their job is taken over by a machine. Nor does a person buying as little as possible mean that they are poor and unhappy, if it is part of a conscious effort to reduce their economic footprint, and thus environmental footprint. Schmelzer's suggestion of measuring the inequality in a society is an improvement over economic measures like GDP, but ultimately they are both proxies for what people actually care about, their quality of life and their vision for its improvement which can be directly explored by letting the people speak for themselves.
3 Literature Review
The first section of this chapter elaborates on the implications of the theoretical framework. The second section provides a review of literature that relates to the development of the smart city. It also contains of discussion of the strategic choices cities developing as smart cities must make. This section ends with an examination of the forces at work in a smart city that affect people's ability to influence development. With the relevant background in place, this chapter ends with a study on Austin as a technopolis to show what happens when cities focus purely on economic development.
3.1 Enabling the Right to the City
Lefebvre's concept of the right to the city makes frequent appearances in city-related literature. The phrase has been used in rebellion against the dominant ideologies by those who feel, "The mantra of efficiency may reduce the capability to think about radical alternative imaginaries, to invoke the freedom to experiment alternatives, to debate or even fight for pursuing alternative forms for our common daily social space" (Lombardi and Vanolo 158). These are people negatively impacted by the renewed focus government on public-private partnerships led development initiatives, reduced welfare-state systems following the economic crisis (Lombardi and Vanolo 154). It has also functioned as "a slogan against exclusion" for those struggling for clean water in South America, or for rent control in Berlin (Shaw and Graham 5). David Harvey, interprets the phrase to mean a claim to "some kind of shaping power over the processes of urbanization, over the ways in which our cities are made and remade, and to do so in a fundamental and radical way" (5). Harvey advocates for a transformative shift away from the dominant culture of consumerism and neoliberalism, that leads to the homogenization of society. Media theorist Benjamin Bratton provides a more subtle take, in that it presents the right "for anyone to move and navigate freely through urban space and to engage with it on his or her own terms" (174). Regardless of the exact interpretation of the right, there is always the risk that it will only be applicable in practice for a limited group of individuals.
Bratton's interpretation comes closest to expressing the whole of Lefebvre's
conception of the right to the city, which includes also the right to be different. The right to be different is meant to encourage the development of heterogeneity in society, which
prevents societies stagnation. Different people provide different viewpoints and generate alternative ideas for the good life. Even the most radical views can benefit a society if they are critically engaged and assessed. Chris Butler warns that without the right to difference, the right to the city can be "de-radicalised and either reduced to a positivist and
institutionalized principle within a collection of human rights, or politically neutralised into a tool capable of being mobilised for both reactionary and progressive political agendas" (156). Including the right to difference in the right to the city may reinvigorate those who consider the concept useless in modern times (Butler). The right to difference as presented by
Lefebvre includes protection of the concrete differences that have historically been used to deny people their right to the city (race, class, gender etc.).
Taken together, the right to the city and the right to difference are part of a process Lefebvre's calls autogestion. Autogestion occurs when social groups actively engage with the conditions controlling their lives (Butler 100). Acts of autogestion encourage diversity in society as each group works to transform shared institutions (Butler). This is a continual process of self-discovery that is facilitated by civic engagement. However, recent trends in society, like the increased influence of business, have changed the role of citizens to be closer to that of a consumer than a political agent (Butler 149).
In order to claim their right to the city groups need access to capital that can be exchanged for resources. Capital can take numerous forms including economic capital, political capital, and social capital. Sociologists Haynes and Hernandez, in their study of social capital use by American black communities, found that social capital is commonly defined by sociologist as a "combination of resources embedded in social networks that is activated by trust" (62). The value of social capital is that it can be exchanged for other resources by individuals in a connected network. Social capital can be thought of as a collective resource. The amount of social capital an individual has depends less on them personally than it does the social standing of the group as a whole (Haynes and Hernandez 64). Disenfranchised groups by definition hold social capital of relatively less value when compared to those closer to the empowered group.
Government policies have the power to increase or diminish the social capital of certain groups (Blokland and Rae). Industrialization and urbanization ushered in a golden age of social capital production as more people moved from the country to the city,
increasing the frequency interpersonal contact. Politicians, businessmen, and labourers were put in a position where regular interactions between the groups were possible, which allowed
people to find shared goals and collectively improve the city. This changed as cities developed suburbs and moved factories out of the city. Those with the economic capital found themselves less committed to one city and were instead willing to relocate themselves, and their money as they saw fit (Blokland and Rae). In their study of the decline of urban social capital Blokland and Rae come to the conclusion that:
...cities have fundamentally changed in their social fabric, and new urban
constellations have emerged that might provide social capital to some, but do so in more exclusionary ways, thereby confirming rather than challenging inequalities within cities and the various enclaves that can be found there - ranging from gated communities and gentrified neighbourhoods on the one hand to ghettos and poor enclaves on the other…(38)
Often, when a poorer neighborhood has changed it has done so through gentrification, which does not improve the lives of the impoverished because they end up pushed out of their own neighborhoods (Harvey 78). Gentrification is actively met with hostility by local groups, but there is less resistance to "urban revitalization" (Bronstein 28), especially when it's framed as a necessary step to tap into the appealing technology sector (Straubhaar et al.).
Unlike economic capital, social capital production is not a zero-sum game. It is possible for groups to raise their social capital concurrently. Groups containing poor and uneducated people, do not lack social capital, but they are unable to exchange it for economic capital within their own network. In fact, low-income communities have been shown to develop extensive networks of support to make up for residents' economic shortcomings (Curley). Public policy often encourages this sort of community level development as a way to fill in the gaps left by welfare (Blockland and Noordhoff). The problem is that the social capital of these communities hold little value to systems geared toward profit generation, so other groups are less willing to connect with them.
Blokland and Savage observe that among policymakers "measures of social capital are too easily abstracted" (7). Often policy connects space with social capital in a way that assumes the poor will raise themselves out of poverty if they are provided the opportunity to live in more affluent neighborhoods. Relocation does not automatically lead the poor to make new and economically productive connections, those in poverty do not use their social capital in the same way as those with financial stability. The rich and the poor live such different lives that they end up living in subjectively different worlds (MacDougall), that in turn influences how they deploy their resources. The poor use their social capital just to get by, whereas those better off financially use social capital to secure resources to improve their
position in life, which includes advancing their political views (Blockland and Noordhoff). As cities develop their digital economies, in addition to the older forms of division they may have used, like those relating to class or race, there will also be the split between digital literate individuals and the non-digital literate. In cultures where technology is prolific this division usually develops along generational lines (Prensky), but it can also develop based on a culture's relationship with technology (MacDougall). If a city is to be inclusive it should actively work to prevent this division from developing, and try to close others. A conclusion of Putnam's 20-year study was that networks of civic engagement were important for the government performance. The existence of strong social ties boosted solidarity and was a precondition for modernization. Putnam found that social capital was important for prosperity, but has been on the decline since the mid-20th century. Putnam based his conclusion on the declining rate of participation in voluntary social groups like bowling leagues and churches. Florida adds to Putnam's research in that the people he spoke to felt the social organizations of the past had too much control over their lives in a way that interfered with their autonomy, "these people prefer weak ties to strong"(30). Strong ties create tight-knit communities that close themselves off to outsiders in a way that retards their development and ability to adapt. Weak ties allow a looser network to form that allows outsiders to bring new perspectives and resources. However, these weak ties also allow the creative class to move locations as needed in order to follow employment opportunities.
3.2 Technology and the City
David Harvey observed that as technological development has progressed, it has moved the dominant economic sector from agriculture, to industry, to information; driven forward by the need for growth. Along with this progression, cities have expanded their acquisition area for resources from the natural resources of their immediate area, to the human talent available around the globe ( Harvey 95; Florida). Cities that want to encourage the development of information or data based industries are now in an international
competition. Economic capital in the digital economy is not tied to a geographic location like a farm or factory, so it is more likely to move to wherever has the most favorable conditions (Florida). Cities have adapted to the need to compete globally by adopting policies that attract the people and business that can grow their economies. Those policies can be ad hoc, but more often they follow a specific vision for the industry they are trying to attract.
The smart city is part of a long lineage of terms used to differentiate urban environments. Policymakers have adopted labels for their cities depending on the sort of industry they want to develop, including "smart", "creative", and "green" to name a few (Nam and Pardo; UN). The city of Melaka, Malaysia wants to encourage the development of its eco-tourism industry and has developed the Green City Action Plan to meet its goal (Asian Development Bank). The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has developed the Creative Cities network for cities looking to develop their cultural and creative industries. Smart cities draw from several other classes of cities such as "wired" and "green", and focus on the use of technology to address urban issues, like traffic and local pollution, and increase the overall quality of life (Nam and Pardo).
3.2.1 Historical Context for The Smart City
Scholars such as Antoine Picon trace the vision of the smart city, back to the cybernetic visions of the future that followed World War II. Cybernetics (from the Greek word for "governance") emerged as a discipline out of the development of anti-aircraft weapons, based on a theory of learning through feedback. The discipline's founding father, Norbert Wiener, hoped for cybernetics to "attack the problem of control and communication" (17). As Wiener saw it, the ability to guide and control a system was directly impacted by the accuracy of the information one had about the system. Imperfect information leads to a buildup of errors that eventually causes the whole system to fail if left uncorrected. Greater complexity in the system increases the chance for errors, which increases the appeal of a proposed solution to the problem. Cybernetics offered a way to overcome the limits on information by systematizing the process of continuous evaluation and learning. For the decades that followed cybernetics enjoyed a privileged position among university and government elites. It was positioned as a catch-all discipline (Halpern, Beautiful Data 99). An early proponent of cybernetics, Ashby Ross, felt that the discipline's value was in its ability to be applied to systems that despite their importance, were too complex for study under previous methods, like "the human economic system"(5). Katherine Hayles more recently identifies a part of cybernetics' appeal in its ability to create a framework that can explain both living and nonliving systems. Cities are often described as a complex system made up of smaller complex systems, so that as a whole, cities can be categorized as
of feedback and corrective control into their management has been long standing.
Beginning in 1971, cybernetics was first given the chance to improve a society on a grand scale. The cyberneticist Stafford Beer was contracted by the newly elected, socialist government of Chile to develop a cybernetic management system for the country's entire industrial sector using advanced technology for the time. Beer called the project Cybersyn from a blending the words "cybernetics" and "synergy" (Medina 571). Beer developed extensive rules for designing a control system for a society, that hinged on using all relevant information to adapt the system to changes in its environment. Beer's goal was to find the balance between centralized control and the individual freedom the Chilean people had voted for (Medina 585). Designing with socialist ideals in mind meant including the worker at the top and bottom of the production process so he could develop physically and mentally (Medina 597). While there were signs of successful implementation in it was not as efficient as Beer had hoped due to delays in the transmission of information from the factories to the central government. The project ultimately fell apart due to political circumstances that forced those running it to flee the country (Medina 606). The US identified the socialist government of Chile as a threat to its economic and political interests from the moment of its election (Kornbluh). In 1973, a US-backed military coup successfully deposed the
democratically elected government and ended the Cybersyn experiment. Beer insisted afterwards that the program would have succeeded if given the chance, and if the trouble gathering real-time data on what was happening in the factories was overcome (Morozov).
Beer's Chilean experiment in governing societal systems through cybernetics was ahead of its time. The amount of real-time information available was limited, information transmission was slow, and its analysis was slower still – all of which diminished the capacities of the simulations used to make decisions (Medina 589). While it failed in its initial deployment, technology has advanced to the point where elements of cybernetic principles have the chance to succeed, thanks to digital data being collected and utilized at exponentially greater rates than decades ago. The internet of things allows every object capable of establishing an internet connection, share data on its current state (Kitchin and Sung-Yueh). The massive amounts of data collected from such internet connected devices represent a potential resource for information referred to as big data. The internet of things and big data are both important developments from the deployment of ICT that have lead to the development of smart cities.
3.2.2 The Smart City
The definition of a smart city varies depending on the defining entity and the context. For some, a smart city means incorporating ICT technology into its infrastructure, while for others it means adopting smart growth policies for the city that look at the impact of the city on its natural environment (Hollands; Picon). Cities guided by smart growth policies have a more holistic vision of their future that requires investments in the people who populate the city, and protect the environment that contains the city. Antoine Picon argues for a literal interpretation of what it means for a city to be smart. As Picon sees it, "In the smart city, some mechanisms for learning, understanding and reasoning are internalised; they become intrinsic to the city itself"(29). Here the principles of cybernetics make a return only instead of "feedback mechanisms" the smart city simply learns. Adding to the confusion is the wide range of urban planning terms that relate to, and are sometimes treated as, synonymous with the smart city (Kitchin). In part, this stems from the term's position in a long line of labels applied to cities to entice developers (Watson). Past trends for city labels included wired, digital, intelligent, cyber, knowledge, creative and eco (Hollands; Kitchin; Nam and Parado). Every label appeals to a particular vision of what a good city is meant to be. The earlier labels related to incorporating the emerging technology into the fabric of the city; literally lay down wires and add digital controllers to infrastructure (Hollands). Later terms look beyond the physical structures of the city, to the people the city contains, and the environment that contains the city (Albino et al. 9). For example, the notion of "knowledgeable cities" "frequently focus on the relation of universities and academic knowledge and their links to the business world, relations which don’t only depend on ICT infrastructure" (Hollands 306). The word ''smart'' has been brought to the top of urban planning discourse, because a myriad of applicable definitions allows it to function as a catch-all term that a variety of cities can incorporate into their promotional material (Schaffers et al. ).
Rob Kitchin identifies two broad definitional categories for smart cities. The first describes the deployment of ICT throughout the city to improve management and efficiency, and the second describes the development of the knowledge economy where ICT is used to support the "innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, enacted by smart people" (2). These smart people are part of the "creative class" who smart cities are interested in attracting over the working class, because they can take advantage of the new services in the city to generate monetary value (Picon 45). Kitchin's categories are a contraction of the three dimensions
used by Nam and Parado to categorize a city's smartness through the relation between technology, individual people, and political engagement. Within technological discourse, smartness relates to embedding autonomous agency into devices (Nam and Pardo), smart people are considered those with the capacity to use their knowledge, resources, and social capital to create local enterprises (Albino, Berardi, and Dangelico), whereas a smart community uses technology to engage with members and governing institutions (Nam and Pardo). To date, the dominant definitions for smart cities have focused on technology (Hollands), but that is not representative of the reality; more prolific technology does not improve efficiency or improve lives alone.
3.2.3 Smart City Strategies
Smart city projects must settle on a vision for the city they would like to create. Angelidou considers it a mistake for cities to believe that technological innovation alone makes a city smart (S3). To address the problem of smart cities developing in a haphazard way, she reviewed the decisions that needed to be considered by city planners: which level of government controls the effort, whether to build a new city or use an older one, focusing on hard or soft infrastructure, and using economic sector or geographic location-specific strategies.
Angelidou does not identify specific advantages or disadvantages associated with cities focusing on an economic sector or geographic area for smart city initiatives (S6). The trend she observes is that cities tend to "focus on enhancing the intelligence of specific socio-economic aspects of everyday living, such as business, housing, commerce, governance, health, education, and community, without placing specific emphasis on the geography of each sector" (S6). When cities do choose location-specific initiatives they look for technological solutions to enhance the benefits people can derive from the area (S6). For example, the West Orange project was initiated to deploy smart meters in an area where they had otherwise low uptake in the western neighborhoods of Amsterdam (Amsterdam Smart City, Smart Stories).
At the city level of implementation, budget constraints are more likely to be an issue, as cities compete with each other for national funds. Smaller cities are further disadvantaged, as larger cities are more likely to better equipped to deploy resources (Angelidou), which raises the likelihood that initiatives will be successful, in turn making them more appealing to outside investors. There is some benefit in this competition however, as it can motivate
inter-city collaboration, where cities learn from the successes and failures of peers with characteristics similar to their own and create networks of support (Tranos and Gertner). Tranos and Gertner stress the point that cities do not develop in a vacuum. In fact, successful smart cities position themselves as part of an international network for the exchange of talent, knowledge and capital. Whether engaged with it or not, and whether they are smart or not, all cities are now part of a global network. Economic capital, knowledge, and people flow between cities to concentrate in the most favorable areas (Florida). Being seen "smart" is a way for cities to increase their competitiveness with other cities (Hajer and Ton).
Regardless of the level at which implementation occurs, smart city initiatives need to be situated within a "complex web of policy agendas already operating" (Angelidou S4). Urban problems are relatively manageable, quantifiable, and responsive to policy changes (Angelidou S4). Cities have a flexibility not available at larger scales that allow them to adjust governance models to benefit from the proximity of urban problems and decision makers. Cities can effectively work with affected community groups to prioritize policies across a range of issues, promoting bottom-up forms of governance and fostering
intrapersonal networking. Though the differences between neighborhoods can make it so pilot projects and small-scale initiatives cannot scale to the city-wide level (Angelidou S4).
Within existing cities, there is a complex web of people, institutions, and stakeholders that require great effort be expended to bring their agendas into alignment. The diversity of views create a problem for organization, but opens up avenues for innovative problem solving as well (Angelidou S4). The choice between strategies that focus on hard or soft infrastructure, is essentially the choice between being a smart city through technology, or through smart people. The hard infrastructure of the city is its physical infrastructure. A focus on hard infrastructures buys into a technologically deterministic view, that better technology, and greater access to it will improve civic life (Angelidou S4). Early smart city discourse was dominated by an emphasis on deploying new technology (Hollands). A problem associated with hard infrastructure is that the proprietary technology behind it locks a city into partnerships with their initial providers, due to the high cost and difficulties with cross-platform integration (Angelidou). Hollands argues that the technological smart city is a smokescreen that allows ICT businesses to dominate local policy. He goes on to argue that ICT can enable smart city development, but that development can be imbalanced, and exacerbate local problems of inequality (Hollands 310). Technology take-up exists in a reciprocal relationship with other social factors like income, housing and lifestyle. Angelidou
agrees that there is a risk for social disparities to develop based on unequal access, and technical knowledge. This can aggravate the digital divide, where existing inequalities within a society become apparent in different community's technological advancement (Angelidou). Investments in soft infrastructure can overcome some of the failings associated with a hard infrastructure focus and increase inclusion. The soft infrastructure of the city is its human and social capital; its people, their knowledge, and the networks they are a part of (Angelidou). Investment in human capital creates empowered citizens capable of
participating in political discourse. Investment in social capital creates social sustainability, and encourages inclusion in the digital realm as long as development proceeds with a few caveats. First acknowledging that not all people have equal access to digital resources, and second that access does not guarantee citizen engagement (Angelidou). Soft infrastructure is an indispensable part of smart cities that benefits from policies that include social, cultural, and economic interests (Nam and Pardo). Technology is only useful if people are able to engage with it, so smart cities need both hard and soft infrastructure and must only decide on their priority. The right mix between hard and soft infrastructure investment will depend on the starting state of the city. Cities that already have advanced ICT technology would benefit from programs that ensure citizens have the knowledge and ability to make use of it, and vice versa for cities with a knowledgeable populace but diminished ICT deployment. Nam and Pardo concluded that "given the connection between the factors, a city is smart when investments in human/social capital and IT infrastructure fuel sustainable growth and enhance a quality of life, through participatory governance" (286). Thus the inclusive smart city is one that empowers its people to use ICT to exercise their right to the city, which means they are actively engaged with and invested in the city.
The urban environment contains many various stakeholders that can have divergent needs and desires. Budget constraints mean certain interests need to be prioritized. Striking a balance between the stakeholders that inhabit cities is no easy task, but it is the job
politicians signed up for. Government's wield power that has an effect on nearly every part of a person's life. The goal of politics in general is bringing people together to realize a
collective vision of a good life by developing policy (Strauss 343). Individual policies can have effects in unintended areas of citizens lives that are hard to predict before they are implemented in real life (Strauss 345). All smart city initiatives are the result of political actions, and therefore reflect an idea of the good life, because all political actions are guided by the thought of the common good. That the push towards the knowledge and creative
economy in smart cities is a good thing needs to be questioned based on its effect on the people outside of those economies to reach their vision of the good life.
Zelda Bronstein's examination of smart city zoning policy, that pushes low-tech and thus low rent businesses to the periphery, found a lack of consideration for unskilled labor. Since the 1920's urban planners have displaced the working class to facilitate economic growth and urban renewal, accomplished by moving factories out of cities and replacing cheap housing. Smart city projects have continued this trend by ignoring the role
low-technology jobs play in vibrant city economies by providing meaningful employment to the unskilled (manufacturing has traditionally been a path to the middle class), and by grounding capital in physical locations (Bronstein); something not really possible for economic sectors where physical investments take form in easily movable objects, like computers. This is not to say that manufacturing is at odds with the knowledge economy. In fact, manufacturing employs scientists and engineers at nearly twice the rate as the rest of other sectors of the economy (Bronstein). In assessing zoning policy for smart city projects politicians tend to look at the money value of properties. Bronstein considers this a mistake because rents tend to be lower for manufacturing locations, and that indicator does not represent the greater contributions manufacturing makes to the economy. On a societal level, it ignores the contribution low-skilled workers can make to the city by pushing them out.
Another element of the smart city implementation is whether initiatives are imposed from the top-down, or develop from the bottom-up. A top-down approach means that a government entity is the project's initiator, but doesn't exclude citizen involvement. This approach benefits from the resources available to large organizations, like governments and companies, that can support smart city initiatives till their completion. Taken to the extreme top-down approaches can result in massive undertakings to create smart cities from the ground-up. These cities are often testbeds for large tech companies (Cisco, Siemens, IBM etc.) to showcase their latest developments, and result in technologically ideal cities devoid of the people that actually make cities worthwhile (e.g. Songdo and Masdar City). These ideal smart cities are often critiqued as "large, corporate, quantitatively driven,
non-qualitative sensorial spaces" (Halpern, Beautiful Data 242). These purely top-down approaches to the smart city miss that it is people who make a city, and represent the outcome when governments and business proceed without consulting the public.
A recognised issue with top-down approaches, is that policymakers are susceptible to the influence smart city marketing tactics used by tech companies trying to sell their products
(Watson). Companies often produce plans that are flashy enough to seduce politicians, but lack clear solutions for the problems they claim to fix (Watson). Caragliu and Del Bo question whether companies concern for solving urban problems, outweighs their desire to obtain lucrative service contracts. Kitchin identifies three areas of concern regarding the over- entanglement of companies in smart city initiatives: the administration of public services for private profit, monopolization of future developments through technological lock-in with the original company, and the disregard of local conditions. Kitchin's concerns align with the neoliberalization of government Peck and Tickell critique as having undue influence on policymakers. Ultimately the pitfall of purely top-down approaches besides "the obvious authoritarian implications of spatially imposing rigid schemes for an ideal
community that is free of social conflict" is that "utopias of spatial form inevitably run up against dominant social relations and the institutional process which they must engage" (Butler 146). Without a sufficient level of citizen engagement, top-down smart city initiatives transform city management into data management which risks masking societal issues
behind information flows (Kitchin).
The opposite of an imposed program is a bottom-up project initiated by citizens, though the government can be needed at later stages in the initiatives development cycle. Part of the selling point for many smart city initiatives is that they offer innovative solutions for urban problems, and "From the point of view of innovation, the notion of public
participation is now widely accepted" (Linde 270). Halpern notes there is a strong preference among scholars for the bottom-up approach (Beautiful Data 242). Nam and Pardo found that either approach can develop successful smart city programs, "but active involvement from every sector of the community is essential" if the entire city is to transform to being smart (287). Songdo and Masdar City represent smart cities developed without input from the people meant to live in them, and are not considered successful. Still, even when people are consulted, the result can be less than ideal if the stakeholders involved are not aligned to the same goals.
The mass deployment of ICT connected to the internet in cities and societies has allowed for the real-time generation data missing from Beer's Cybersyn. But Beer was not only interested in collecting data on quantifiable points like traffic and air pollution, he also wanted to deploy a simple dial device called an "algedonic meter" to every home ( aldonic being a combination of the Greek works for pain and pleasure)(Morozov). By moving the dial between degrees of happiness, the algedonic meter would have allowed the government
to track how their policies affected people. More holistic visions of the smart city consider investments in people along with technology to drive sustainable growth and improve quality of life (Caragliu and Del Bo), but none as of yet have considered the direct measurements of satisfaction among the people in the city.
3.2.4 Right to the Smart City
Marshal McLuhan opens his essay The Emperor's Old Clothes with the statement "The natural effect of any new technology is to create a new environment for itself" (90). His point finds its mark with smart city technology, where cities literally rise from the sea to provide a setting for technology deployment (Picon). The growth paradigm as influential among policymakers today as it was following WWII (Schmelzer 269), and now that digitization has become a large part of the economy, technology companies have seen their influence rise (Watson).
Smart city development plans as public-private partnerships are common around the globe when governments and companies find they have common goals for the city (Vanolo 891); which, based on the belief in economic growth as a panacea for societal issues, they often do (Schmelzer 264). These partnerships tend to seek out potential investments that can be captured under the smart city discourse umbrella (Vanolo 891). The technical presentation of urban issues, has allowed the smart city to spread quickly through standardization of the problems, and solutions, in the city (Vanolo 891). Of course for a business, the ultimate goal is to make a profit despite the rhetoric used. Philips, for example published a report called building "Building Smart Cities for Smart Citizens" that criticizes many smart city projects as being imposed on citizens without engaging them in the process (7). Moving forward Philips recommends cities "become truly citizen-centric"(18), maybe even going so far as to hire Chief Citizen Experience Officers to ensure positive citizen experiences across the city's services. Finally, they recommend standardizing the process so it can be easily replicated and recommend their partner TM Forum’s Customer Centricity and Data Analytics program for cities to track their customer's experience, and their Smart City Maturity & Benchmark Model to track the progress to smartness (19-21). Like GDP, benchmarking reduces complexity to a one-dimensional scale (Vanolo 890). The benchmark characteristics may seem straightforward, like measuring the deployment of ICT in the city, but they also involve choices made by people to measure one characteristic and not another, and usually, the benchmark model chosen is the that the city's current state looks best on (Vanolo 887).
Designers, engineers, and architects employed by technology companies work in an abstract environment with a particular idea of how their products will be used, but that does not determine how people will actually use them or the full impact they will have on society (MacDougall). Typically, when a new technology comes to market the enhancements it will provide to society are promoted, while any problems it might generate are hidden
(MacDougall). The speed at which new technologies are appearing makes it difficult to predict the effects of their use. Yet that does not deter ICT companies from using aggressive marketing campaigns to sell products as they develop (Caragliu and Del Bo). Take for example the situation in Rio De Janeiro ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics (Gaffney and Cerianne). The Mayor wanted to recreate the high-tech operation center he saw on a visit to New York in his city. IBM was willing to provide out of the box solutions that turned out to be unusable without so much reprogramming that the city found it more helpful to end official ties with IMB and retrofit the technology on their own. Still, IBM uses the control center as part of its "Smarter Cities" campaign (Gaffney and Cerianne 11).
Vanessa Watson's study of smart city projects pitched in India and Africa, found that the ICT companies involved had undue influence in the process, and little accountability. For Watson, many of these projects are best considered "fantasies" of their creators, because of the disconnect from the lives of inhabitants. It is often the case that the plans presented for smart city projects lack the detail for what qualifies them as "smart" (Watson 37). In these traditionally underdeveloped areas she observes "a clash between the race for global corporate profit and the realities of the urbanization process in contexts where poverty is extensive, systems of governance are weak and often corrupt and urban infrastructure backlogs are high" (Watson 38). The aftermath of the clash is a development plan skewed away from the needs of citizens, and increased inequality from the redirection of funds otherwise meant for developing poorer areas.
Urban fragmentation and polarization as a result of ICT projects are not isolated to underdeveloped regions. Hollands notes that there is a global development of high-tech enclaves segregating city populations economically and socially. The rhetoric surrounding smart cities often includes improving the lives of citizens, but this is said to be accomplished by developing new avenues for entrepreneurial ventures to boost the economy (Smart Cities Council, Open Data Guide). Secondary is how smart city initiatives directly improve the lives of citizens, and even less consideration is given to the involvement of those citizens in
the process.
Hollands is led to conclude that despite the rhetoric "in smart city discourses about the importance of local communities and social learning, an overall emphasis on business-driven technology and gentrification could be interpreted to imply that this urban form is relatively unconcerned with class inequality (i.e. particularly the non-creative classes), inclusion, and social justice" (312). Residents lacking the skills to join the knowledge and creative workers smart cities are designed to attract, are pushed to find employment servicing the welcomed newcomers. When the salary for each type of labor diverge too far it disproportionately affects the marginalized groups in the city that are underrepresented in the creative class (Wiener).
The material promoting smart cities produces an idealised image of the future where anyone can take advantage of the new opportunities created, but that is not actually the case unless cities make efforts towards that goal (Wiig; Straubhaar et al.). The promise is that ICT and data are what is needed for individuals to use their entrepreneurial spirit to raise their economic standing, by devising new applications to generate value (Hollands; Straubhaar et al.). The argument rests on the premise that the tech startup culture that brought wealth to Silicon Valley can be replicated elsewhere (Straubhaar et al.). However, this ignores the fact that most startups are destined to fail, and that it is a particular kind of person who is willing to take that risk (Graham). Being able to engage in entrepreneurial activities is a luxury position. Taking that level of risk is not smart for those with no safety net. Additionally, the story of the successful entrepreneur is really the tale of a successful entrepreneurial
ecosystem which allows differentiated individuals to find a role (Siegele). Startup founders are a particular set of people with the mentality that are pursuing self-discovery through their work (Marwick). Not everyone is driven to be an entrepreneur, and within a larger
community everyone might not want to participate, nor do they need to express themselves in such a way as part of their development (Linehan and McCarthy). To ignore their right to the city in favor of those who are more able to engage with the city as prescribed, would be an affront to the concept.
Government officials are susceptible to marketing campaigns just like everyone else and the rhetoric of smart cities offers an "enticing potential of socio-economic
progress—more liveable, secure, functional, competitive and sustainable cities, and the renewal of urban centres as hubs of innovation and work" (Kitchin 2). Even overly ambitious projects that sound too good to be true, may find support because of the short-term gains
politicians can reap from grand sounding projects (Watson). Alan Wiig (2016) found one such project in Philadelphia. Through the creation of the Digital On-Ramps initiative, the city aimed to transform its workforce to meet the demands of the 21st Century. The initiative was meant to supplement the city's failing school system with a workplace training app accessible from any internet connected device. Wiig's investigation into the initiative found that despite the positive rhetoric, Digital On-Ramps failed to meet its stated goals. The target students were not in a position to succeed because of their socio-economic backgrounds that limited their access to digital resources outside of school, and their physical distance from the potential job opportunities. Yet, when speaking about it, Philadelphia's mayor presented the project as a success (Wiig). What this shows is that planning for smart cities consistently ignores the local context in determining feasibility and potential benefits (Watson; Halpern, Test-bed Urbanism). Proof of the benefits for the citizens living with these projects is often not readily available "since to date no empirical analysis has been carried out on the
empirical link between smart urban characteristics and smart policies, carried out by public and/or private actors" (Caragliu and Del Bo 659).
As noted earlier the implementation of a policy connected to develop as a smart city can function as promotional material for the city itself. The city of Philadelphia made its partnership with IBM under their Smarter Cities Challenge, a keystone of their promotion strategy (Wiig). IBM also presents the initiative as a success in its promotional material (IBM, Smarter Cities Challenge). Both the city and the business are able to distort the narrative of their endeavor by focusing on the goal they aimed to achieve while ignoring the actual outcome for the people they claimed to serve. Vanolo notes that smart cities operate in a way to encourage the development of the "smart citizen", which given the importance of technology in the smart city leaves "little room for the technologically illiterate, the poor and, in general, those who are marginalised from the smart city discourse"(893). The process of becoming a smart citizen is generally left to the people themselves, in line with the general neoliberal philosophy of human entrepreneurialism, which as noted, does not work for everyone.
To illustrate the flaw of a hands-off approach for including people in the smart city, the next section will use Austin's development of as a technopolis as an example. By way of this analogy, the problem can be followed from its development to its eventual solution.
