Smart and (Un)Sustainable? Empowering Manchester's Youth to Reform the Smart City

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Rendering smart cities concrete and accountable is challenging. Seamlessly integrated technologiesrooted in techno-utopian belief systems (Sadowski and Pasquale, 2015) are implemented into theurban fabric under neoliberal ideals 'modelled on dogmas of efficiency' sustainability, and freedom of choice crucial to market imperatives (Cardullo and Kitchin, 2019, p.824). A predominantly techno-utopian approach to city management and governance, dominant imaginaries presume urbanfunctioning can be optimised or addressed through technological solutions (Hobbs-Morgan, 2017;Morozov, 2013). Everyday structural problems are not, however, confronted. Urban cores centrearound branding tactics and 'citizen focus', 'sustainable' or 'eco' labels amounting to little more thantokens of greenness (De Jong, 2019). At the heart of smart urbanist discourse lies cleverly marketeddevelopment strategies promoting implementation of cutting-edge technologies to fuel economicgrowth whilst simultaneously reducing environmental impacts through lofty rhetoric of 'greengrowth' (Trencher and Karvonen, 2019). However, concerns towards citizen involvement, unevendistribution of benefits, and theincompatible nature between social equity and emerging 'two-speedcities' arise (Martin et al ., 2018). Instead of empowered citizens, we witness key components ofefficient systems and infrastructures. It is henceforth crucial to challenge evolving relationshipsbetween smart, sustainable, and techno-optimist strategies. Klein (2014) has called for asociotechnical perspective warranting more holistic approaches to our urban futures whereby smartversus sustainable urban mobilities no longer exist as unaligned paradigms (Lyons, 2018).