Roadmaps to utopia Tales of the smart city

• Published in: Urban studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) Vol. 55; no. 15; pp. 3385 - 3403
• Main Authors: Valdez, Alan-Miguel, Cook, Matthew, Potter, Stephen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England Sage Publications, Ltd 01.11.2018; SAGE Publications; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Brand identification; Cities; Claims; Data processing; Discourses; Legitimacy; Narratives; Networks; Power; Smart cities; Smart growth; Transportation; Transportation planning; Urban areas; Urban development; Urban planning; Urbanization; United Kingdom > UK; England; Milton Keynes England; smart transport; 科技/智慧城市; 治理; technology/smart cities; 交通运输; 智能交通; transport; governance
• ISSN: 0042-0980; 1360-063X
• DOI: 10.1177/0042098017747857

Notions of the smart city are pervasive in urban development discourses. Various frameworks for the development of smart cities, often conceptualised as roadmaps, make a number of implicit claims about how smart city projects proceed but the legitimacy of those claims is unclear. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. We explore the development of a smart transport application, MotionMap, in the context of a £16M smart city programme taking place in Milton Keynes, UK. We examine how the idealised smart city narrative was locally inflected, and discuss the differences between the narrative and the processes and outcomes observed in Milton Keynes. The research shows that the vision of data-driven efficiency outlined in the roadmaps is not universally compelling, and that different approaches to the sensing and optimisation of urban flows have potential for empowering or disempowering different actors. Roadmaps tend to emphasise the importance of delivering quick practical results. However, the benefits observed in Milton Keynes did not come from quick technical fixes but from a smart city narrative that reinforced existing city branding, mobilising a growing network of actors towards the development of a smart region. Further research is needed to investigate this and other smart city developments, the significance of different smart city narratives, and how power relationships are reinforced and constructed through them. 智慧城市的概念在城市发展话语中普遍存在。智慧城市发展的各种框架通常被概念化为路线图，这些框架对于如何开展智慧城市项目有一些隐含的主张，但这些主张的正当性尚不清楚。本文开始着手解决这方面的知识差距。我们以英国米尔顿凯恩斯 （Milton Keynes) 1,600 万英镑的智 慧城市项目为例，探讨了智能交通应用 MotionMap 的发展。我们考察了理想化的智慧城市叙事在地方上是如何打折的，并讨论了在米尔顿凯恩斯观察到的叙事与过程及结果之间的差异。研宄表明，在路线图中列出的数据驱动效率的愿景并不具有普遍吸引力，城市交通流量的不同感知和优化方法有潜力赋予或剥夺不同行为者能力。路线图往往强调实现快速实用成果的重要性。然而，在米尔顿凯恩斯观察到的益处并不来自快速的技术修复，而是来自一套智慧城市叙事，这套叙事强化了现有的城市品牌打造，动员越来越多的行为者共同开发智慧地区。我们需要进一步研宄调查这一智慧城市以及其他智慧城市的发展，研宄不同的智慧城市叙事的意义，以及权力关系如何通过它们强化和建构。