Design, control, predict : cultural politics in the actually existing smart city / Aaron Shapiro.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Shapiro, Aaron (Professor of technology studies), author.

Contributor:

Marvin, Carolyn, degree supervisor.

Lingel, Jessa (Jessica), 1983- degree supervisor.

Jackson, John L., Jr., 1971- degree committee member.

Kraidy, Marwan M., 1972- degree committee member.

Sheller, Mimi, degree committee member.

University of Pennsylvania. Department of Communication, degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--Communication.

Communication--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--Communication.

Communication--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

xiv, 287 leaves : illustrations ; 29 cm

Production:

[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] : University of Pennsylvania, 2018.

Summary:

Design, Control, Predict: Cultural Politics in the Actually Existing Smart City studies the discourses, rhetorics, intuitions, logics, policies, imaginaries, and imageries that animate the intersection between computational media technologies and cities. It presents three case studies in which a diverse array of actors and institutions engage in struggles to articulate, define, and render legible highly complex, unruly, and often woolly urban processes as problems of efficiency to be solved through technocratic intervention. The introductory chapter, "Cultural Politics, Smart Cities, Logistical Media" (Chapter 1), theorizes the relationship between two ways of studying the smart city as a cultural-political object. On one hand is a global imaginary that takes shape in pristine architectural renderings, diagrams detailing the embedding of data-generating technologies within urban spaces, and city-scale prototypes built de novo on greenfield sites (such as Songdo in South Korea, Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, and PlanIT Valley in Portugal). On the other is the "actually existing smart city"--the piecemeal interventions that take hold in extant cities. These two versions of the smart city are considered in tandem for two reasons: first, to understand the way that imaginaries shape actual interventions, and second to avoid hierarchical categorizations of the smart city based on their formal qualities (the "top-down" and "bottom-up" smart city). The chapter then moves to detail the dissertation's media-theoretical approach to the smart city. It argues that the smart city's computational media should be noted for their logistical affordances. Smart city technologies, like logistical media broadly, operate by orientating, arranging, and tracking mobile objects and people within urban spaces. Their principal concern is to eke out new efficiencies that can be mined and exploited to produce value. The chapter argues that a more nuanced approach is needed to study the smart city, one that accounts for the logistical affordances of urban computational media technologies while simultaneously situating those within cultural-political struggles around the legitimacy of smart city interventions. The dissertation then moves to consider three case studies, each of which focuses on the cultural-political dimensions of smart city interventions. The selection of these case studies is meant to reflect the wide range of interventions taking place in the actually existing smart city.

Notes:

Ph. D. University of Pennsylvania 2018.

Department: Communication.

Supervisors: Carolyn Marvin; Jessa Lingel.

Includes bibliographical references.

OCLC:

1306020910