Smart Cities: the Standardization of the City?

目前的研究计划旨在理清推动智慧城市项目在全球传播的复杂和矛盾的力量。一方面，研究探讨了影响城市发展和城市空间生产的标准化动态。这里的关键论点是，IT行业的领先全球参与者，通过进入城市基础设施的增长市场，是这种标准化背后的主要驱动力。另一方面，我们特别强调在某种意义上折射标准化的那些方面。该项目认为，这种折射尤其发生在三个关键的紧张关系中：(a)公共利益与私人利益；(b)全球流通vs.适应地方需要；(c)工业经济体的技术发展与新兴经济体的主要实施。该项目特别试图找出实施智慧城市的具体战略和项目如何以及产生什么结果来处理这些紧张局势背后的冲突。从经验上看，该项目通过明确的多标量研究方法解决了智慧城市战略如何在全球范围内循环的复杂性，也与三个关键的紧张领域保持一致。我们对两个城市实施项目的组织生态中公共行政部门和私营技术公司之间的互动和谈判过程进行了当地案例研究。我们(b)系统地将分析扩展到案例研究城市的边界之外，以便掌握如何将标准化解决方案转化为具体的当地环境。最后，我们(c)选择阿姆斯特丹和新加坡作为案例城市，从而以范例的方式考虑了工业化国家和新兴经济体之间的差异。

The present research proposal seeks to disentangle the complex and contradictory forces that drive the global spread of Smart-City-projects. On the one hand, the research addresses the standardization dynamics that affect both urban development and the production of urban space. The key argument here is that leading global players from the IT industry, by entering the growth market of urban infrastructures are the main driving forces behind this standardization. On the other hand, we place a particular emphasis on those aspects that, in a sense, refract standardization. The project holds that this refraction occurs particularly along three key tensions: (a) public vs. private interests; (b) global circulation vs. adaptation to local requirements; (c) technology development in industrial economies vs. main implementation in emerging economies. The project particularly tries to find out both how and with what result concrete strategies and projects conceived to implement Smart Cities deal with the conflicts that underlie these tensions. Empirically the project addresses the complexity auf how Smart-City-strategies circulate globally through an explicitly multi-scalar research approach, also aligned with the three key areas of tension. We carry out local case studies about (a) processes of interaction and negotiation between the public administration and private technology firms within the organizational ecologies of implementation projects in two cities. We (b) systematically extend the analysis beyond the borders of the case study cities in order to grasp how standardized solution are translated into specific local contexts. Finally, we (c) select Amsterdam and Singapore as case cities, thereby paradigmatically taking the difference between industrialized countries and emerging economies into account.