Short description
(English)
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The project critically explores the processes, relationships and mechanisms through which current efforts towards smarter cities are conditioned and co-produced. It does so through the empirical investigation of two initiatives devoted to the elaboration of novel best practices and technologies for smarter cities: Future Cities Laboratory, a research platform in Singapore developed by the ETH Zurich and two partner universities (1) and Ittigen, one of the most coveted test municipalities in Switzerland for the development of new smart city solutions (2). At their core, smarter cities imply a world of perfect ordering and regulation-at-a-distance that relies, fundamentally, on the coding of social life into software. Yet such processes of ordering and software sorting are never neutral, whether the collection, classification and analysis of data aim at greater efficiency, convenience or security. Concerned with precisely this problematic, our project also aims to highlight a number of critical issues - and to assess their potential implications for individuals and social groups - arising from the organizational settings and situated coalitions of authority underpinning current efforts towards smarter cities.
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Partners and International Organizations
(English)
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AT, BA, BE, BG, CH, DE, DK, EL, ES, FI, FR, HR, HU, IE, IL, IT, NL, NO, PL, PT, RO, SE, SI, UK
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Abstract
(English)
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The project explores a number of critical issues arising from the organisational settings and situated coalitions of authority underpinning current efforts towards smarter cities. It does so through the empirical investigation of three initiatives devoted to the elaboration of novel best practices and technologies for smarter cities: (1) Ittigen, one of the most coveted test municipalities in Switzerland for the regional adaptation of smart grid solutions; (2) Flexlast, a test site for new and innovative smart grid solutions beyond the individual household level; (3) Future Cities Laboratory, a research platform in Singapore for the elaboration of novel smart-city approaches, developed by the ETH Zurich and two partner universities Project findings are published in a series of three papers, which study and conceptualise the making, functioning and implications of smart cities from different theoretical and thematic perspectives. Together, the three papers aim at exploring the discursive construction of contemporary smart-city initiatives and policies, the power struggles and coalitions of expertise across different geographical sites in the making and subsequent exemplification of the 'smart city' as a novel urban policy model, and the logics and regulatory dynamics inherent in novel smart-city approaches and technologies
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