There Seems To Hold Upward Roughly Tension Betwixt Competing Visions For The Smart City

We've looked at Smart Cities for years but haven't done much on the New Urban Agenda in addition to Right to the City approaches promoted yesteryear the United Nations.

If interested hither is the U.N.'s "Cities 2030: Implementing the New Urban Agenda".
Also Habitat III, The "United Nations Conference on Housing in addition to Sustainable Urban Development"

Boiled downwards to simplistic terms, it's all near the fungibility of coin in addition to power.

The Smart Cities folks utilisation coin (itself fungible with technology) to gain political power.
NUA folks utilisation political mightiness to gain assets.

You may receive got noticed to a greater extent than in addition to to a greater extent than mayors asserting themselves on the the world stage, this is component of the NUA approach. Political persons expanding their sphere of influence.

Where it gets interesting is when the 2 approaches interact.

Here are a distich examples of the tension referenced inwards the headline.
First up, we'll laid the tabular array with StrongTowns, August 28:

IoT:  The Irrelevance of Thingies 

Smart City aficionados are agog at the prospect that the Internet of Things volition create vast novel markets for applied scientific discipline that volition disrupt in addition to flame cities. Color us skeptical; our sense with applied scientific discipline hence far—and its been rapid in addition to sweeping—is that it has accentuated the advantages of urban living in addition to made cities to a greater extent than vital in addition to important. From the standpoint of urban living, i should regard “IoT” every bit “the irrelevance of thingies.”

It’s been to a greater extent than than 2 decades since Frances Cairncross published his mass The Death of Distance that prophesied that the advance of computing in addition to communication technologies would eliminate the importance of “being there” in addition to erase the postulate to alive inwards expensive, congested cities. (It goes down, along with Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and Kevin Hassett’s Dow 36,000 as i of the demonstrably to the lowest degree accurate mass titles of that decade.)

Back inwards the 1990s, when the Internet was new, at that spot was a widely repeated in addition to widely accepted sentiment of the upshot of applied scientific discipline on cities in addition to residential location. The thought was “the decease of distance”—that thank you lot to the Internet in addition to overnight transportation services in addition to mobile communications, nosotros could all only decamp to our preferred bucolic hamlets or scenic mountaintops or beaches, in addition to virtually telephone it in.

And these predictions were made inwards an era of dial-up modems, analog cell-phones (the smart telephone hadn’t been invented, in addition to Amazon was silent making most of its coin cannibalizing bookstore sales). We were all going to travel “lone eagles”, tipping the residual of mightiness away from cities in addition to heralding a novel historic menstruum of rural economical development. Here’s a typical convey from 1996, courtesy of the Spokane Spokesman Review:

Freed from urban purpose buildings yesteryear faxes, modems in addition to limited mail, only eagles are seen yesteryear economical evolution experts every bit a novel cardinal to bolstering local economies, including those of rural areas that receive got been stagnant for much of the century.

Faxes? How quaint. Since then, of course, we’ve added gigabit Internet in addition to essentially gratis spider web conferencing in addition to a wealth of disruptive apps. But despite steady improvements inwards technology, pervasive deployment in addition to steadily declining costs, none of these things receive got come upwards to pass. If anything, economical activity has travel fifty-fifty to a greater extent than concentrated. Collectively, a decade afterwards the Great Recession, the nation’s non-metropolitan areas receive got yet to recover to the grade of work they experienced inwards 2008; meanwhile, tube areas, particularly large ones with vibrant urban cores, are flourishing.

The economical information position the prevarication to the claim that cities are obsolete.  One of our favorite charts from Oregon economist Josh Lehner points out that larger metropolitan areas receive got outstripped smaller ones, in addition to rural areas receive got continued to turn down inwards this tech-based era...MUCH MORE

And from FairObserver, March 13, 2018:

No Silver Bullet: The New Urban Agenda in addition to Smart Cities
Technological fixes such every bit smart cities brand a arrangement to a greater extent than complex, resulting inwards “wicked problems” that require e'er to a greater extent than extensive technological remedies.

In Oct 2016, at the World Urban Forum 8 inwards Quito, Ecuador, UN Habitat launched its 3rd planning bike with Habitat III, similar a shot known every bit the New Urban Agenda. The agenda defines the operate of the global urban community until 2036, yesteryear which fourth dimension humanity volition hold upwards good on its means to an estimated 2050 population of 10 billion — two-thirds of which volition hold upwards urban dwellers. The New Urban Agenda established an ambitious in addition to aspirational innovation for how the the world volition manage the intensified procedure of what French philosopher Henri Lefebvre, writing inwards 1970 termed, “planetary urbanization.”

Habitat III was component of a larger procedure inside the community of experts in addition to practitioners working on the dandy problems of the 21^st century: climate change, unloose energy transition, nutrient in addition to H2O insecurity, demographic shifts (growth, aging in addition to urbanization), pandemics, ecological degradation, economical stress in addition to political instability, alongside others. Prior to Habitat III, their ambitions constituted what is known every bit the post-2015 evolution agenda. The yr 2015 was meaning because it marked the renewal in addition to reinforcement of several cardinal evolution agendas. The kickoff was United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Relief’s re-worked disaster run a jeopardy reduction platform, the 2015 Sendai Framework, followed yesteryear the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) inwards September 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement inwards Dec 2015 and, ultimately, Habitat III inwards Oct 2016.

Replicating Power Structures Many encounter the New Urban Agenda every bit the cardinal to humanity’s mightiness to weather condition a perfect tempest of global crises. As the roadmap for surviving the 21^st century, it carries an immense burden, in addition to those working to brand its vision for inclusive in addition to sustainable urbanism a reality must contemplate a broad array of wicked problems. At Quito, however, it became clear to many observers that the New Urban Agenda was a mile broad inwards ambition, but non fifty-fifty an inch deep with concrete plans for implementation. Session afterwards session deferred the tedium of noun activity yesteryear insisting that the operate ahead was to figure out how to implement the fine words of the document. That operate would hold upwards undertaken inwards Kuala Lumpur, at the World Urban Forum 9 inwards Feb 2018.

The chore of the forum was to figure out how to implement the New Urban Agenda. The forum focused on the SDGs, particularly Goal 11, which aims to “make cities inclusive, safe, resilient, in addition to sustainable.” It was an appropriate focus for a gathering of the world’s city-engaged human evolution experts in addition to practitioners, providing a house to compare notes, promote best practices in addition to network. This, however, is non the amount story.

The plausible, if skeptical, convey is that World Urban Forum ix was near reproducing a evolution agenda deeply entrenched inwards the Washington Consensus values of marketplace liberalization in addition to institutional commodification. The presence of experts who ostensibly command the noesis behind the agenda added a whiff of legitimacy. The program featured a dizzying array of workshops that had the mutual narrative of “hearing from the audience” in addition to fostering “participatory development.” However, the content in addition to many of the messages appeared to hold upwards driven yesteryear funder or grant mandates. Left wanting, inwards many cases, were those who came to larn something practical: how to furnish H2O inwards informal settlements, how to prepare for climate modify or how to better waste materials disposal.

Many sessions had a neo-colonial atmosphere every bit representatives from the privileged global minority — heads of agencies, NGOs, query institutes, graduate programs, corporations in addition to fiscal institutions — chaired sessions in addition to monopolized beak time. It was a scene profoundly reminiscent of the global evolution procedure of the yesteryear half-century.

Smart Cities A novel evolution at World Urban Forum ix was the emergence of smart cities every bit a meta narrative for the New Urban Agenda’s implementation. The forum featured a proliferation of sessions near smart metropolis technologies, plenary speakers dropped the term every bit the gilded criterion inwards sustainable in addition to inclusive urban planning, in addition to many exhibition booths featured strident declarations near the intersection of green, smart in addition to inclusive — all underpinned yesteryear the vast potential of technology. Considering that Habitat III’s New Urban Agenda scarcely mentions smart cities, the term’s ubiquity at World Urban Forum ix merits some contemplation.

Smart cities receive got abruptly appeared on the agenda for a combination of reasons. First, the world’s urban pontificators — a faddish lot — postulate a flashy concept to embody the implementation solution for the New Urban Agenda. Second, inwards its ambiguity the smart cities concept has travel a sail onto which many agendas are splattered. This versatility makes smart cities to a greater extent than a convenient placeholder for a normative vision of 21^st-century urbanism than a noun solution that tin hold upwards implemented. Third, in addition to perchance most importantly, smart cities are where the large coin is flowing. Cisco Systems, Microsoft in addition to Google, alongside many other corporate players, are all committing to smart cities, in addition to they stand upwards to capture a growing slice of the speculative upper-case missive of the alphabet that sloshes roughly the global markets....MORE

As I said, the fungibility thought is simplistic.
But it's a handy mental matrix to underlie our thinking.
I'm pretty certain at that spot volition hold upwards to a greater extent than to come.