Listen to the episode:

You can find the shownotes through this link.

---

Are you interested in smart cities as a functional instrument to influence public debate and policy?

Our summary today works with the article titled Smart City appropriation by local actors: An instrument in the making from 2019 by Jonathan Desdemoustier, Nathalie Crutzen, Mario Cools, and Jacques Teller, published in the Cities journal. Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how the different urban actors understand and appropriate the smart city concept. This article presents that smart city, indeed, can be an instrument and that each actor follows their own logic.

[intro music]

Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today I will introduce a research paper by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original paper, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole paper. Stay tuned until because I will give you the 3 most important things and some questions which would be interesting to discuss with a special attention to Australian cities.

[music]

The literature on smart cities lacks research on how actors understand and appropriate the smart city. The phenomenon is often perceived as a development of the territory pushed on the one hand by technologies and, on the other hand, by a holistic development which may include a whole series of notions such as sustainability, governance, human-centricity, public value creation, citizen participation and so on. This paper stands out because it approaches smart city from the Instrument theory as a conceptual framework. According to the instrumental theory, smart city may either be considered as a functional instrument – a kind of evidence, a denaturalised technical object and a pragmatic solution at disposal, or as a public policy instrument – not neutral, provoking debates on public goals, influencing policies, affecting actor’s resources.

An instrument is never a closed device, it is inseparable from a contextualised mode of appropriation. When the smart city is considered as an instrument, it can ensure a choice of practical device and some modes of operation. In fact, the smart city emerged as a new way of imagining, organising, and managing the city and its flows. The smart city is considered an instrument that could be appropriated by actors as either a functionalist instrument or as a public policy instrument. This paper studies how actors – politicians and public servants, private actors, members of the civil society and researchers – are appropriating the smart city between a functionalist instrument and a public policy instrument.

Once viewed as a functionalist instrument, smart city can promote management and regulation of the city that operates via information and analytic systems, promoting a technocratic mode of urban governance. This presumes that a city can be measured, monitored and treated as a technical problem which can be addressed through technical solutions. The smart city once viewed as a public policy instrument is an ideological construct according to which being smarter entails specific strategic directions. In smart cities, proposing visions for the city of the future and developing policy instruments to achieve those visions are important capabilities of actors.

The authors collected 193 responses for their online survey among Belgian actors active in this domain. The results show that the instrument theory is relevant to analyse the actors’ appropriation of the smart city, which does not follow a homogeneous trend, and each actor has their own logic. Even though the different actors have on average a harmonious vision on several topics concerning the smart city but their own positioning varies on specific statements. Both views, the functionalist and the policy instrument, converge in a smart city as an instrument that proceeds the management and government of cities and territories. Some participants even put tags and warnings for the smart city implementation.

From all of the actors, the answers did not cluster around either of instrumental approaches based on the role of the respondents – the politicians, public servants, private actors, members of the civil society and researchers appropriate the smart city through the two types of instruments. Some understood the smart city as a functionalist instrument, as an appropriate management device for a city and territory based on an efficient mode of governance where complex social problems can be solved or optimised. The smart city in this aspect is a denaturalised technical object, neutral, equally available and without political value and consequences, just a pragmatic solution, a device utilised to transform the territory.

Some considered smart city as a public policy statement with an ideological dimension. They mainly stress their own force of action and the potential effect of the smart city. Their appropriations focus on the consequences of the smart city as an instrument that impacts territories and societies. They mainly concentrate on the potential negative effects. The smart city is not purely technical, inert and with perfect axiological neutrality – on the contrary, the smart city is full of values questioning the future of cities and towns. The smart city is an instrument full of consequences provoking debates on political goals, influencing policies and affecting actors’ resources.

The smart city can be considered as an instrument of territorial construction. On the basis of this article, both views, the functional and policy instrument, are present in the public regardless of their role in society and the city, showing that the smart city understanding does not follow a homogeneous path. Smart cities need to be contextualised and discussed for achieve their best results through either the functionalist or policy instrument or even a combined way.

[music]

---

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Do you have any follow up question? Let me know on Twitter at WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the transcripts and show notes are available! Additionally, I will highly appreciate if you consider subscribing to the podcast or on the website. I hope this was an interesting paper for you as well, and thanks for tuning in!

---

[music]

Finally, as the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. The smart city emerged as a new way of imagining, organising, and managing the city and its flows.
2. The smart city can be considered an instrument that could be appropriated by actors as either a functionalist instrument or as a public policy instrument.
3. Urban actors – politicians, public servants, private actors, members of the civil society and researchers – appropriate the smart city through both types of instruments without a homogenous view, which means that smart city approaches need clarity when established

Additionally, it would be great to talk about the following questions:

1. What does smart city mean to you?
2. Do you agree with either instrumental approach? Which one would you choose and why?
3. Which one do you think your city has and which one would be needed more?
4. How are you participating as an urban agent in your city’s future?

[outro music]

---