The Danger and Delusion of Smart Cities
What we’re getting wrong about the fantasy of Smart Cities.
The Other Side
In Part One, we poised the argument of Smart Cities being the mark of a transitional time for humanity to embrace the automation and connectivity of the future to enable a fulfilling and efficient metropolitan experience. The truth is, there is great potential for Smart Cities to be more problematic than positive. Let’s dive in.
What’s in a name?
The name ‘Smart Cities’ lends itself to a problematic trend in technology and technology products over the last several years. Placing ‘Smart’ as a prefix to an existing concept or technology dates the old version of it, and leads consumers to believe they need to upgrade to the ‘smart’ version, or risk missing out on a plethora of new features and possibilities.
More often than not, this tactic is a cheap marketing ploy that continues to be used after the smartphone era. While that idea was a little more revolutionary and warranted the prefix, the recent iterations of Smart TVs and Smart Homes have been trivialized and reinterpreted to target industries. Companies continue to capitalize on this and even use it as the basis for value propositions.
With Smart Cities, a similar climate is beginning to develop. It’s becoming such a sexy word to many different kinds of people for different kinds of reasons, and it’s something being used to seduce businesses, clients, and readers.
Smart cities will use the “smartness” of their name to spice up their existing means of income (transit, energy, gas, etc) while also leverage their region-specific competitive advantages.
The Perils of Courtship
The other thing to keep in mind when assessing cities and their ‘smart’ initiatives is the ulterior motives at play. Lately, there has been a trend of cities implementing such initiatives as a strategic move to court large, rapidly expanding tech companies who are looking for a new home.
Amazon is undoubtedly the largest fish in this scenario. Potential host cities literally have been bending over backwards for Amazon, showing how different and marvellous their take on Smart Cities is, when in reality, they are hiring people as ‘Smart City Coordinators’ and propose very specific public developments to service the idea of landing the next Amazon HQ. Cities in this position strive for this because it’s a perfect cocktail of good press, a surplus in employment, and a sweetened reputation for tourism.
The courtship of tech giants has become the new olympic bid. Why vye against other cities in the hopes of getting two weeks of visibility and tourism when you can bid for the next tech corporation to take over your area’s economy for decades?
Responsible Objects
Cities that are developing into Smart Cities often start with the widespread implementation of devices that aggregate data surveillance. While this sounds productive and beneficial in theory, the socio-economic implications of this are less convincing. Crime mapping applications that don’t function on a per capita basis and surveillance AI leads to over policing and crowded prison systems in the rougher parts of town.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of town, the rich dude in his luxury vehicle can run a smart red light and make it home to his house on the hill unaffected.
The retooling and rebranding of cities by placing smart meters and devices at every corner does not fix the broken social systems that are impervious to automation. This points at a larger, looming responsibility and why the trend of smart cities might not deliver the utopic digital communities we fantasize about.
The nature of big-money tech giants like Apple, Google and Amazon are that they might be too disruptive and too schizophrenia in their positioning to anchor the economies of large communities. These giants are successful because they are constantly transitioning their business models to fit the now. This results in a harsh reality of many towns that are graveyards for moonshot projects from these large companies, now left with empty facilities and an economic deficit.
Next time…
In Part 3, we will hear from real companies and real people on the front lines of the Smart Cities fight, and forecast where the Smart Cities concepts will lead us. Stay tuned by following us on Medium here, or Twitter here.
