Do you think that a strong corporate-based approach to creating smart cities may pose risk for independence of governments? Do the corporations like Google, IBM, Intel, Cisco that provide technologies for smart cities may influence a city decision-making policy?
Thank you for any comments that will help me work further on my PhD dissertation.
The key issue here is monopoly. If tech corporations somehow manage to become a monopolist of the infrastructure and operation of smart city, it is going to influence a city's decision-making at least with regard to technology adoption. However, if their monopoly power is limited, their influence is also restrained. Of course, big corporations may always have some influence over a city's decision-making, but that is not necessarily related to smart city.
I think Feng Frederic Deng has a point, I would call it oligopoly to be more precise, the big players always find a way to mimic the competition while seizing the market. Also, "smart" is nowadays aiming outside the digital realm and we know that the main grids of infrastructure (water, electricity, transport etc.) are historically more connected to political power than the e-governance tools. Maybe it is the nexus of these ultra-smart tech suppliers with the hardware suppliers that concentrate enough power to influence local policies to the extent that it can actually affect the governance. I wonder what is the hierarchy of power and the forms of collaboration in between that sort of actors.
Thank you for your all opinions! Catalin Berescu, I hope I will be able to find that out - in August I'm starting a half year study on US cities that are strongly engaged in public-private partnerships in creating smart city infrastructure. An interesting thing happens in Songdo, a build from scratch smart city of South Korea, where I also did a study. The leading project company has shares in the city, and thus may have a quite big impact on the city decision-making processes. And, as this is a company, it's not so willing to talk about uncomfortable topics that may show that Songdo fails in some areas (actually, they don't want to talk at all, either with academic people from Songdo, and - it doesn't have to), that shows Abhishek Singh that even if we know all smart cities should be people oriented, it happens in reality that they are not always as such...
Thank you a lot for your precious comments and remarks, Abhishek. When I think about a smart city declaring to be people oriented, a few ideas of checking it comes to my mind, like: do there exist any working institutional tools and policies to ask people about their needs (maybe it's not a new tech-oriented investment, only building a new school) and how governments reply to those needs, or do they invite people, NGOs to make a city decision based on a multisectoral partnership. Finally, maybe, how the citizens feel about the city, how they assess the urban quality of live; that could indicate if the city operates in a way that is coherent with the citizen needs. Those are only some of theoretical propositions, of course. And thank you for the whishes! :)
'technology' is ultimately a tool which the political context both shapes and is shaped by. In South Australia, most discussion has affirmed that citizens should drive the outcomes rather than tech companies per se, but I get its more complex than that. The role of 'community engagement' in sharing power needs exploring
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