Shaking for innovation: The (re)building of a (smart) city in a post disaster environment

Abstract

This paper begins by exploring a smart city approach in post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand, by telling the city's story so far. We take the position of critical scholars who are engaged in a live smart cities project that involves the measurement of air quality by using sensor tools. As the project is still ongoing, the final results of the work are yet to be seen, but, nonetheless worth documenting. This article is composed as an early analysis of the air quality sensing project as a framework for the larger smart city story of Christchurch. It provides an overview of the experiences and lessons learned about the implementation of new technologies in a post-disaster environment. We examine how the narrative of the smart city is constructed, with focus on the terminology used by citizens, academicians, government and corporations. We then argue that top-down technocratic solutions to urban problems alone do not suffice to improve life in the city; rather, they can result in misaligned expectations or outcomes for stakeholders at the government and citizen level. We conclude by suggesting that citizen-led initiatives may be a way to promote more nuanced and inclusive ways of addressing local urban problems in a smart cities context.