By Natalia Sandoval Quezada.
From time to time, new models of urban development arise offering a variety of actions to improve the experience of life in the city, trying to respond to local interests. Some of them fail to secure support from either the academic or political sphere, while others become relevant, precise, and even sought through different policies. Of course, conditions and needs may change over time, transformed by different factors, and urban utopias become obsolete while new ones take their places trying to respond to new dilemmas. It is in this context that the concept of smart city arises, offering a model for growth and urban renewal that makes use of technology as a tool for automation, efficiency, and digitization of everyday processes, among other things. This model promises to improve our cities while also offering a vision of a technological future that humans have always longed for, as can be seen in books, movies, and other cultural expressions.
What else could we want? A place where most of our daily interactions with the city and our neighbors are controlled and effected through apps, cables, signals, making everything faster, easier, and more convenient. Technology (in its different forms) has always been equated to progress and development. Therefore, a smart city is not only desirable, but possible, attainable, and appealing. The smart city offers a vision of utopia that seduces the masses and politicians alike, combining what we love about the digital world with what we want for our physical spaces. It is this phantom image that gains followers and supporters, becoming a tool for propaganda through which promises of future progress are made and new policies are created in the direction of the life we want. However, the answer to why we would want such a life may lie hidden among the dazzling bits that intend to reign supreme over the spaces we inhabit. In this way, it’s crucial to stop the race to transform our cities into smarter spaces and start to question our goals for this or any other model. In other words, we should focus on the ideals we are engaged with, rather than the means: focus on ‘what’ we want to achieve; and, most importantly, on the individuals that inhabit these spaces. In the end, these are the people who live and will continue living in urban communities. We must plan the future for them and us.
In fact, I’d like to stop at this last idea and highlight this ‘us’: an abstract concept of humankind, which is sadly not as simple as we’d like to think, but diverse and heterogeneous. ‘Us’ contains specific cultures and backgrounds. It’s clear that different implementations of smart cities throughout the world might not be the same or respond to the same needs or goals. Reflecting upon these issues, the motivating forces behind smart cities and their interpretations, as well as the diversity among users depending on their conditions, it’s important to stress that more research is needed to gain deeper knowledge and understanding of smart cities. The more perspectives and approaches there are to examine and challenge the model, the more contributions will be made to improve the implementation of smart cities, or aid in finding alternatives that direct or bring about urban growth today or in the future. However, we may only find these diverse perspectives by shining a light on cases that contrast with existing knowledge derived from cases from industrialized countries that have been exported to developing countries. It’s absolutely necessary to investigate new sources, such as those presented in this study, and find how they contribute to the current discussion.
Natalia Sandoval Quezada is an architect with expertise in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Building Information Modeling (BIM). She contributed to the project Smart Cities in the Global South as a research intern during 2020. Natalia currently works as an Information Manager in Region Skåne.
Smart cities in the global south 