“Smart” Discourses, the Limits of Representation, and New Regimes of Spatial Data

Abstract

As "smart" urbanism becomes more influential, spaces and places are increasingly represented through numeric and categorical data that has been gathered by sensors, devices and people. Such systems purportedly provide access to always visible, measurable and knowable spaces, facilitating ever-more rational management and planning. Smart city spaces are thus governed through the algorithmic administration and categorisation of difference, and structured through particular discourses of smartness, both of which shape the production of space and place on a local and general level. Valorization of data and its analysis naturalizes constructions of space, place, and individual that elide the political and surveillant forms of techno-cractic governance on which they are built.This article argues that it is through processes of measurement, calculation, and classification that "smart" emerges along distinct axes of power/knowledge. Using examples drawn from the British Home Office's repurposing of charity outreach maps for homeless population deportation and the more recent EU EXIT document checking application for European citizens and family members living in the UK, we demonstrate the significance of Gunnar Olsson's thought for understanding the ideological and material power of smartness via his work on the very limits of representation. The discussion further opens a bridge towards a more relational consideration of the construction of space, place, and individual through the thinking of Doreen Massey.

Smart technologies for fighting pandemics: The techno- and human- driven approaches in controlling the virus transmission

“…Further, early research emphasized that smart technologies institutionalize and mechanize processes by collecting and analyzing data and then solving problems without significant levels of human intervention (Chatterjee et al, 2018) and that interaction between humans and devices would result in 'superior judgements' (Sohoemaker & Tetlock, 2017). The literature has also J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f emphasized that smart city spaces are governed by algorithmic administration and categorization (Dalton et al, 2020), whereas this research demonstrates that such an understanding is merely an imaginary. This research also highlights that governments continue to retain their agency and conceal information that they deem not to be shared, which limits the influence of technologies.…”

Ruins of the smart city: a visual intervention

“…A ‘smart city battery’ and other ‘green technology’ (Manchester Metropolitan University, 2018) feature elsewhere in the zone, alongside a sustainability trail and edible gardens (see Figure 6). These developments are brought together under smart-focused rhetorics of technological development, vaunting sustainable goals and hyping entrepreneurial knowledge innovation, invoking contemporary discourses of smartness (Dalton et al, 2020).…”

Development Of Transportation And Logistics Systems In Digitalization And Intellectualization

“…In the fourth place, the current flow models are not fully developed for cities of different formations, and do not reflect the current features, processes and structures of the urban economy and do not reflect future factor influences (Dalton et al, 2019;Gessa & Sancha, 2020).…”

“…Today, the progressive development of modern cities faces the following problems such as the resource supply, the functioning of the transport and logistics system (or TLS), processing, storage and transmission of information, as well as with an increase in social and material inequality, security, deterioration of the natural environment and difficult epidemic situations (Dalton et al, 2019;Dowling et al, 2019;Hatuka et al, 2018;Jin et al, 2019;Wong et al, 2018). Of particular interest are the directions of economic discussions on the development and formation of an integrated urban digital ecosystem, where the development of modern cities' infrastructure is of the highest priority.…”