Chapter 7 - The social shaping of smart cities

Abstract

This last chapter concludes the investigation by summing up the key lessons and recommendations that this book can offer to the community of stakeholders involved in smart city research, policy, and practice. The series of complementary analyses that the previous chapters report on demonstrate that, when untangled from the technocentric urban utopia pictured by the corporate sector, smart cities have the potential to develop into innovation systems that set the stage for a technology-enabled approach to urban sustainability. But realizing this opportunity requires to move beyond traditional boundaries, separate the hype from reality, and strengthen the focus on the social shaping of smart cities. The investigation demonstrates that, in order for such a social shaping to develop, the design of smart cities needs to be understood as a collective action in which two complementary forces are combined. On the one hand, the faith in the technological advancement exposed in the utopian thinking. On the other, the knowledge, skills, and interests of a quadruple-helix collaborative environment where the need for technological innovation in response to urban sustainability goals is not shaped by the corporate sector and its technocentric and market-oriented logic, but an open community whose actions serve the public interest and are based on a holistic interpretation of smart city development.