Understanding and Managing Smart Cities - Chapter 2 PDF

COLLEGE OF MANAGEMENT & TECHNOLOGY - CAIRO DIGITAL & SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT BDE3135 – UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING SMART CITIES DR. RAMY AHMED FATHY CHAPTER 2 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF SMART CITIES ...

COLLEGE OF MANAGEMENT & TECHNOLOGY - CAIRO DIGITAL & SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT BDE3135 – UNDERSTANDING AND MANAGING SMART CITIES DR. RAMY AHMED FATHY CHAPTER 2 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF SMART CITIES  DISCLAIMER Slides are for educational use, intended for the sole purpose of education, to be shared internally, for personal and non-for- profit purposes, and it is not intended to be share, reproduced, published, or used in any way outside the scope of the classroom and as delivered by this course, without prior written approval from the course author. MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND AGENDA URBAN UTOPIAS THE SMART CITY APPROACH SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: THE ULTIMATE GOAL 3 MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND AGENDA URBAN UTOPIAS THE SMART CITY APPROACH SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: THE ULTIMATE GOAL Ref: Luca Mora and Mark Deakin, Untangling Smart Cities From Utopian Dreams to Innovation Systems for a Technology-Enabled Urban Sustainability. Elsevier, 2019. 4  URBAN UTOPIAS MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Dreaming about the future of cities and conceiving new visionary schemes for improving the sustainability of urban development has a long tradition. In these schemes, the deficiencies of the present translate into stimuli for shaping alternative urban systems in which a new set of rules and standards, that society is expected to adhere to, become the assurance of an improved sustainability. However, despite being built on a genuine intent to improve the human conditions, some of these alternative solutions have resulted in urban utopias: unrealistically perfect spatial imaginaries whose highly symbolic rendering of the future is flawed due to the tendency for the visions that they embody to be based on stereotypical ideas misrepresenting reality. 5  PLATO’S UTOPIA MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND One of the first utopias was created in Ancient Greece, when Plato introduced his totalitarian philosophy of the city. Plato images cities as economic independent and self-sufficient entities in which the community is divided into three classes. For Plato, discipline, perfect obedience, and control over each single member of community are the key components of a perfect society, and they can be secured by combining stringent authority. Scientific analysis of historical utopias, reveals that this Greek utopia stands on principles that relate to an historical era whereby survival is based on the capacity that society has to be prepared for conflict. Plato’s vision of an ideal city is encapsulated in his work The Republic, where he describes a hierarchical and highly structured society aimed at achieving justice and the common good. In this utopian model, society is divided into three distinct classes: rulers (philosopher-kings), warriors (guardians), and producers (farmers, artisans, and traders). Each class has its own role and must perform its function harmoniously for the city to thrive. The philosopher-kings are responsible for ruling because they possess wisdom and knowledge, which Plato believed were essential for just leadership. The warriors are tasked with defending the city, embodying both physical strength and a commitment to the community’s protection. Lastly, the producers handle the economy and everyday needs of the society. Plato believed that a perfect society required strict discipline and control, particularly over the warrior class. In his view, maintaining order and security within the city-state was paramount, and this could only be achieved through rigorous training. 6  THOMAS MORE’S UTOPIA MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Thomas More’s Utopia, a fictional island society in the New World, represents one of the most famous spatial imaginaries produced so far. Conceived in the framework of the urban challenges affecting England in the early 16th century, Utopia manifests itself as a future state of affairs that stands in opposition to war, oppression, and injustice, by proposing a new social structure based on common ownership. Utopia’s ambition to end social inequalities is also shared by Edward Bellamy and the blueprint of the perfect society that he introduces in Looking Backward: 2000–1887. In his vision, which is conceived 300 years after Utopia, Bellamy portrays the stresses of the 19th century industrial society of the United States, that is, violent class conflicts, the end of the frontier and anti-immigrant xenophobia, the labor movement, poor working conditions, poverty, and hunger. The solution that Bellamy offers is for society to replace the competitive economic system with a utopia that promotes universal employment and total equality. 7  GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT BY HOWARD MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Utopian visions of the future city can also be found into the work of some of the most influential modern architects and planners, who provided an invaluable contribution to urban development theory and practice. For example, the English town planner Ebenezer Howard is known for initiating the garden city movement. Shaped in the idea of progress and as a reaction to the over-population, inequalities, and pollution of industrial cities, garden cities were intended as new compact towns surrounded by rolling green belts and populated by self- contained and self-sufficient communities. These new towns were expected to grow outside large metropolitan agglomerations, on large areas of agricultural land, and to combine the desirable features of both the city and the countryside. Howard believed this connection between urban and rural would have set the ground for a new civilization and more sustainable urban planning policies and improved living arrangements capable of ending urban poverty. Howard’s utopian thinking was greatly influenced by Looking Backward, and his work represents an attempt to put forward a practical approach for testing Bellamy’s utopian conceptions of future cities in a real-world setting. However, the garden city experiments failed to meet the expectations. Research by prominent scientists demonstrates that garden cities have proved unsuccessful in building self-sufficient communities and addressing the needs of low-wage workers. In addition, their financial model, which was unsuitable to attract the investments of the banking sector, forced Howard to accept the trade-off between equitable development on the one hand and market support on the other hand. 8  GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT BY HOWARD MANAGING SMART CITIES The garden city concept, despite its pioneering vision for sustainable and socially inclusive urban environments, faced UNDERSTANDING AND significant practical challenges in implementation. Ebenezer Howard’s original vision for garden cities, introduced in his book Garden Cities of To-Morrow (1898), was based on creating self-contained communities surrounded by greenbelts, which would combine the economic advantages of city life with the health benefits of the countryside. This model aimed to support a diverse population by offering affordable housing, ample green spaces, and opportunities for local employment—essentially creating self-sustaining communities that could address issues of overcrowding, poor health conditions, and limited access to nature prevalent in industrial cities. However, as Sharifi (2016) and Hügel (2017) discuss in their research, the garden city experiments failed to fulfill these ambitious goals. Key areas where they fell short include: 1. Self-Sufficiency and Socioeconomic Inclusivity: Howard envisioned that garden cities would function as economically self-sufficient units, with local industries and businesses generating enough employment opportunities and resources to support residents without relying heavily on external economic flows. However, in reality, these communities struggled to sustain diverse economic activity and job opportunities, particularly for lower-wage workers. Industries that could have provided jobs for lower-income residents were often reluctant to relocate to these peripheral areas, which led to a lack of economic diversity and limited employment options within the cities themselves. 2. Housing and Accessibility for Low-Wage Workers: Although Howard aimed to provide affordable housing within these communities, the cost of developing and maintaining garden cities often pushed housing prices up, making it challenging for low-wage workers to afford them. Over time, garden cities attracted more affluent residents, while 9 lower-income workers were left underserved. This situation diverged from Howard’s original vision of creating inclusive and equitable communities where people of different economic backgrounds could live together harmoniously.  GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT BY HOWARD MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND However, as Sharifi (2016) and Hügel (2017) discuss in their research, the garden city experiments failed to fulfill these ambitious goals. Key areas where they fell short include: 3. Financial Model and Investment Limitations: One of the most critical barriers to the success of the garden cities was their financial model, which struggled to attract support from the banking sector. Howard’s model relied on cooperative funding structures and rent-based revenue, as he intended the cities to be owned collectively and operated for the benefit of their residents rather than private investors. This approach was designed to maintain affordability and prevent speculation but was unattractive to traditional investors and banks, who were more interested in market-driven, profit-oriented urban developments. Because of this, Howard faced a difficult trade-off. Without sufficient capital from traditional financial institutions, garden cities struggled to maintain the affordability and quality of infrastructure he had envisioned. Eventually, to secure funding and ensure the development of these communities, Howard had to accept a compromise: allowing more market-driven investment. This shift inevitably led to a prioritization of financial returns, which, in turn, eroded the social equity and affordability goals of the garden city model. 4. Challenges of Scaling and Replication: While individual garden cities could achieve some success in providing green spaces and a pleasant living environment, scaling the model across urban areas proved difficult. The high upfront costs, need for extensive land, and financial limitations prevented widespread adoption, and many cities found the model too restrictive or costly to replicate on a larger scale. 10  THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT MANAGING SMART CITIES The compromises forced by these financial and practical limitations reveal the tension between idealistic urban UNDERSTANDING AND planning and economic realities. While the garden city model inspired later urban development ideas, such as green belts and suburban planning, it ultimately struggled to meet the ideal of a self-sustaining, equitable community. This experience illustrates a broader challenge in urban planning: balancing social equity and environmental goals with the practical demands of financing and market dynamics. Despite its limitations, the essence of the garden city movement has maintained an enduring influence and produced long-lasting effects that still resonate in urban development studies. The principles embedded in the garden city idea have become an inspirational source for colonial planning in sub- Saharan Africa and new residential areas in Brazil. In 2019, Yeo describes the cross agency initiatives that are contributing to introduce the garden city idea into the high-density urban context of Singapore, whose environmental policy exposes its ambition to become a model green city. Hou (2018) reports on the outcomes of the “Garden City Initiative” that the city government of Taipei (capital of Taiwan) has launched to expand urban gardens, exposing the connection between the garden city movement and urban planning practice in Taiwan. 11  THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT MANAGING SMART CITIES The “Garden City Initiative” launched by the Taipei city government in Taiwan represents a modern application of UNDERSTANDING AND the traditional garden city movement, which originated in the early 20th century with Ebenezer Howard in England. The core idea of Howard’s movement was to design urban areas that balance the benefits of urban life—such as economic opportunities and social interactions—with the health benefits of natural, green spaces, mitigating issues like overcrowding and pollution. This approach to urban planning advocated for cities designed with green belts, ample open spaces, and a strong integration of natural elements within built environments. In Taipei, the Garden City Initiative has aimed to introduce and expand urban gardens across the city. The policy has involved creating and supporting green spaces within densely populated urban neighborhoods, transforming available spaces into communal gardens and green areas. These efforts have practical goals, such as improving air quality, supporting biodiversity, mitigating the urban heat island effect, and encouraging community cohesion and public participation in city beautification. Taipei’s initiative has brought a new dimension to urban planning in Taiwan, reflecting a shift towards sustainable and community-driven development models. This urban greening policy integrates principles of sustainability and ecological resilience within city planning, responding to environmental challenges like climate change and aiming to improve the quality of life for urban residents. By fostering community engagement through initiatives that encourage residents to participate in maintaining these gardens, Taipei’s Garden City Initiative has also highlighted the social benefits of urban greening. Residents not only gain access to green spaces but also play an active role in the transformation of their neighborhoods, thereby promoting a sense of ownership, social cohesion, and collaboration. This integration of community-oriented 12 planning with environmental objectives illustrates how Taiwan is adapting the garden city model to its own urban context, prioritizing both ecological sustainability and the well-being of its citizens in a rapidly modernizing city.  THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND The garden city movement has also influenced the Scottish housing reform and town planning practice of the 20th century, leading to significant changes in the approach to construction of working-class housing developments. In addition, there is also evidence of a new garden city idea whose functionality has been recently tested out in York and Oxford. This 21st century version of the garden city builds on Howard’s ideology and is proposed as a possible solution to the housing crisis affecting the United Kingdom. 13  THE RADIANT CITY – CHARLES ÉDOUARD JEANNERET (LE CORBUSIER) MANAGING SMART CITIES The deep preoccupation for the future of cities and civilization that stimulates Howard’s utopian thinking is also shared by UNDERSTANDING AND Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier. As Fishman (1977: 12) states in his presentation of the ideal cities pictured by these three visionary urban planners, all of them “hated the cities of their time with an overwhelming passion” and the urban environments in which they were living represented “the hell that inspired their heavens.” The unrealized masterplan of the Ville Radiouse (Radiant City), designed by Le Corbusier in the 1920s, encompasses his utopian vision of the future city. The Radiant City is created by following the modernist understanding of tradition, which is perceived as a barrier to progress, and suggests building a new generation of urban environments on the ashes of 19th- century cities. According to Le Corbusier, nothing could solve the inefficiencies of cities and their unsustainable development patterns but demolishing and rebuilding cities infused with strict order, symmetry, and standardization. These are the main features of the Radiant City, which rises from a regular layout and a highly organized zoning system composed of the following parallel areas: satellite towns for hosting special functions, such as government buildings; the business center; railroad station and air terminal; hotels and embassies; housing areas segregated by income, which are split between middle-class apartments in monolithic sky-scrapers for luxury high-density living arrangements and six-story buildings and modest accommodations for lower-income residents; factories; warehouses; and heavy industry (Hall, 1988). In addition, in the Radiant City, all the areas are connected through an intricate network of high-speed traffic roads and parking lots exposing an auto-centric design that was expected to satisfy both the needs of a fast-emerging modern 14 transport system and the never-ending obsession of the Swiss-French modernist architect for automobiles (Jacobs, 1961), the same obsession that inspired his architectural work.  THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND As Le Corbusier explains in his manifesto for modern architecture, the mass-production principles and standardized manufacturing process of the automotive industry should have been considered as an inspiration for the construction sector. In his vision, building houses by applying the same level of standardization was the only way to reach a new spirit, whose elevated aesthetic of perfection would in turn lead to the rebirth of architecture. The standardization and strict order that Le Corbusier suggests are also the driving forces behind his utopian view of modern cities and society that is supposed to live such spaces. As Le Corbusier explains while describing his plan and idea of modern city planning, “the city of today is dying because it is not constructed geometrically. To build on a clear site is to replace the accidental layout of the ground, the only one that exists today, by the formal layout. Otherwise nothing can save us. And the consequence of geometrical plans is repetition and mass-production. And as a consequence of repetition, the standard is created, and so perfection”. 15  THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Chandigarh, the capital city of the northern Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, gives a tangible form to the utopian vision that the Radiant City stands for. Immediately after the British voluntarily granted India its independence, India and Pakistan became two different geographic entities. As a consequence of the partition, Punjab was split into two independent countries, and this division left the Indian Punjab without a capital city. Rather than granting the status of capital to an existing city, the prime minister of the Indian Punjab decided to authorize the construction of Chandigarh, a new city that was expected to embody the faith of the nation in a new beginning. In the 1950s, a team of modern architects that included Le Corbusier, his cousin Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry, and Jane Drew was invited to implement the master plan for Chandigarh, a master plan that the American architect and planner Albert Mayer was commissioned to oversee the design of. However, instead of collaborating in giving expression to Mayer’s plan, which was already approved, Le Corbusier took the leadership and used this opportunity to test his strict zoning system and idea of a perfect form of urbanism on a greenfield site. 16  CRITICS OF THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND The in-depth examination of the Chandigarh experience conducted by Hall (1988) and Sarin (1982) in the 1980s, which pictures the city as an incubator of poverty and injustice, uncovers the limitations of the utopian vision proposed by Le Corbusier. This vision has been harshly criticized for being affected by a “profound misunderstanding of human nature” (Fitting, 2002: 80) and a lack of concern for the lifestyle habits of people (Jacobs, 1961), who were expected to accept an imposed one-size-fits-all design that was nothing but incapable of meeting everyone’s needs (Hall, 1988). The failure lays in the monumental dimension of an unrealistic vision, which has proved to be distant from the citizens of Chandigarh, and also the strong belief of Le Corbusier in the triumph of industrial standardization and mass-production methods in the architecture of future cities. 17  CRITICS OF THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND The examination of Chandigarh by scholars such as Peter Hall (1988) and Madhu Sarin (1982) reveals critical flaws in Le Corbusier’s utopian vision for the city. Originally designed to be an embodiment of modern ideals in post-independence India, Chandigarh was intended to serve as a model for planned urban development. However, Hall and Sarin’s studies highlight that, despite its iconic status in architecture, Chandigarh faced significant social challenges and ultimately failed to address the real needs of its residents, especially the most vulnerable populations. 18  CRITICS OF THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Chandigarh as an “Incubator of Poverty and Injustice” Hall and Sarin describe Chandigarh as an “incubator of poverty and injustice,” suggesting that the city’s strict design and planning overlooked social realities. Chandigarh’s zoning approach—separating residential, commercial, and industrial spaces—did not adequately accommodate the diverse economic backgrounds of its residents. This rigid zoning limited access to affordable housing and employment opportunities within local sectors, disproportionately affecting lower-income residents. For example, workers who provided essential services, such as laborers, vendors, and domestic workers, often had to travel long distances from designated areas for work, as their needs were not integrated into the city’s core structure. Furthermore, Le Corbusier’s emphasis on monumental, modernist design focused on aesthetic and functional aspects rather than social inclusivity. As a result, Chandigarh developed into a city with visible inequality: while affluent neighborhoods were well-planned, poorer residents struggled to find adequate housing and access to basic amenities. This contrast reveals a disconnect between the city’s design and its ability to support all segments of society, particularly the economically disadvantaged. 19  CRITICS OF THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND “Profound Misunderstanding of Human Nature” (Fitting, 2002) Le Corbusier’s approach to urban design was shaped by his belief in rationality, order, and standardization. However, this mindset led to a “profound misunderstanding of human nature,” as Fitting (2002) points out. Le Corbusier envisioned cities as machines, where each element was placed according to its function in a pre-defined system. He assumed that human behavior could be molded to fit within this rigid framework, expecting residents to adapt to uniform, predefined living environments without considering individual lifestyles, social interactions, or cultural values. This lack of understanding of human nature became apparent in the day-to-day life of Chandigarh’s residents. The city’s design did not accommodate informal social interactions, organic neighborhood relationships, or local traditions. Public spaces, such as parks and community areas, were laid out with a mechanical, grid-based approach, which often felt cold and impersonal to residents. Le Corbusier’s design imposed a one-size-fits-all model, assuming that all people would seamlessly adapt to the structured environment without accounting for differences in needs, preferences, or ways of living. 20  CRITICS OF THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Lack of Concern for Lifestyle Habits (Jacobs, 1961) Urbanist Jane Jacobs (1961) argued that cities should reflect and respect the lifestyles and social habits of their inhabitants. Jacobs believed cities should encourage spontaneity, diversity, and mixed-use environments, where residential, commercial, and cultural spaces coexisted, fostering vibrant and active communities. However, Chandigarh’s design contradicted these principles. The zoning system isolated functions into different sectors, making it difficult for residents to experience the fluid, mixed-use environment that Jacobs championed. The city’s strict divisions also limited informal economic activity—an essential part of urban life in Indian cities, where street vendors, small businesses, and spontaneous marketplaces contribute to the social and economic fabric. By ignoring these aspects of urban life, Le Corbusier’s design disrupted lifestyle habits central to Indian culture, and residents found it challenging to connect with the city on a human level. Consequently, the city often felt alien to those accustomed to more traditional, organically developed urban environments. 21  CRITICS OF THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Failure of the Monumental Vision and Industrial Standardization Le Corbusier’s vision for Chandigarh was grand and monumental. He believed that modern architecture, with its clean lines and functional, large-scale buildings, could shape a progressive society. This belief extended to industrial standardization, where he saw mass-production and prefabrication methods as solutions for building the cities of the future. His approach favored repetitive, standardized building designs over organic, locally influenced structures, which he believed would save costs and simplify urban planning. However, this monumental approach created an environment that often felt cold and impersonal to residents. The large concrete buildings and expansive layouts were designed more for efficiency and aesthetic impact than for comfort or a sense of community. This emphasis on industrial methods also ignored local materials, architectural traditions, and the scale at which people actually live and interact. As a result, residents sometimes felt alienated, and the city struggled to foster a sense of belonging and pride among its citizens. Additionally, the heavy reliance on standardization limited the flexibility needed to address the specific needs of different groups, particularly lower-income residents who found the housing options neither affordable nor accommodating. 22  CRITICS OF THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Distant from the Citizens’ Needs Ultimately, Le Corbusier’s design for Chandigarh reflected an idealized vision of urbanism that proved to be disconnected from the practical needs and cultural context of its residents. The design failed to account for the social and economic diversity of the population, creating a gap between the utopian ideal and the everyday realities of city life. Although Chandigarh has been celebrated for its modernist architecture, its rigid and somewhat impersonal design limited its adaptability and made it difficult for residents to feel connected to their city. 23  CRITICS OF THE RADIANT CITY MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Summary while Chandigarh is a landmark in architectural history, it reveals the limitations of Le Corbusier’s utopian vision. His belief in industrial standardization, strict zoning, and monumental design, though innovative, ultimately did not align with the lifestyle habits, social needs, and cultural nuances of the city’s residents. This example underscores the importance of creating urban spaces that prioritize inclusivity, adaptability, and human-centered design—qualities that are essential for a successful, liveable city. 24  DECENTRALIZED URBANITY – BROADACRE CITY BY WRIGHT MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Fixing the modern city by using a new code was also the ambition of the American Architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Broadacre City, his utopian vision of a decentralized urbanity. With Broadacre City, Wright attempts to reconcile the progressive power of technological development with the magnificence of nature, two forces that have been drastically separated in the cities of the industrial age. Wright believed that modern technologies were offering society with the opportunity to escape the pitfalls of the industrial city and to embrace improved living arrangements hosted in rural lower-density settlements surrounded by the beauty of nature but without renouncing urban conveniences. In this vision, Broadacre City was conceived as the means for reestablishing the symbiotic relationship between human beings and natural environment (Wright, 1931, 1932), a relationship that Howard, Le Corbusier, and Wright all considered fundamental for individual fulfillment and societal progress. Wright started conceiving Broadacre City in the 1924, and his vision aligns with some of the philosophical principles underlying the garden city vision proposed by Howard. Wright’s utopian thinking shares the same: “rejection of the big city (and high population density), the same populist antipathy to finance capital and landlordism, the same anarchist rejection of big government, the same reliance on the liberating effects of new technologies, and the same belief in the homesteading principle and the return to the land”. However, unlike Howard, Wright does not want the countryside to absorb the life of cities to facilitate community 25 planning, but to give every citizen a place for living as free individuals.  BROADACRE CITY PITFALLS MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND As Levine (2008: XI) describes, Broadacre City was meant “to offer all the advantages of modern technology without any of the disadvantages of the urban congestion and blight that many recognized at the time as a major consequence of modernity.” Wright envisions a democratized society “that would be technologically advanced in practice but agrarian in organization and values” (Shaw, 2009: IV), where each family is assigned an acre, that is, the democratic minimum of land. In addition, this vision for a sustainable urban future was also meant to become the antithesis of what Wright considered as “the superficial suggestions of the machine-made utopia” (Levine, 2008: I) of Le Corbusier and the total loss in human culture this utopia was leading to (Wright, 1931), by imposing verticalization and “the tyranny of the skyscraper”. Unlike Le Corbusier, Wright never had the opportunity to build Broadacre City. However, the fast-expanding trend toward exurbanization, which the United States started registering in the 1940s, caused the massive move that Wright was dreaming about. Cities were gradually depopulating in favor of the countryside, where decentralized forms of communities began growing. Year by year, Wright’s utopian vision was becoming reality (Hall, 1988), but rather than producing the beneficial transformations that he was strongly believing in, this trend made it possible to expose the limitations of the visionary scheme driving his “experiment in civilization”. 26  BROADACRE CITY PITFALLS MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND The 1940s was a period in which the growth in the demand for and supply of rural residential developments began acting as a force of change in the urban development dynamics of North American countries. This change has generated exurbanization, a process of urban sprawl that “occurs when people move from central cities and suburbs into the countryside”, and it resulted in a new low-density and noncontiguous form of urbanization that has irreversibly modified the North American rural land- scape. Nelson and Dueker (1990: 93) estimated that during the period between 1960 and 1985, “exurban counties accounted for nearly a third of the share of continental US growth,” and they also expanded “faster than all other counties in both nominal and share-of-growth terms.” This migration pattern from urban to rural was triggered by a combination of multiple factors. On the one hand, there are socioeconomic and political conditions. The living arrangements offered by suburban and urban areas were unsustainable, especially when seeking for affordable real estate, and the urban policy promoted by the federal government was undoubtedly favoring “new construction over rehabilitation or reuse of buildings, highways over public transit, converting open space to urban uses over leaving it alone, construction of single-family (owner occupied) over multiple-family (renter) housing, growing areas over depressed ones, and new locations over old ones”. On the other hand, new telecommunication technologies (radio, telephone, and telegraph) and modern mobility, combined with the advent of flextime, decentralized working, and manageable commuting costs, were offering the 27 possibility to benefit of urban conveniences but from the natural setting of rural areas.  BROADACRE CITY PITFALLS MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Over the last five decades, urban sprawl has drastically changed land-use dynamics and the spatial distribution of population in US countries, and it has generated a number of sustainability challenges affecting the agrarian landscape. A large number of new rural developments have resulted from this decentralization process in which the land consumed per unit of housing is higher than urban and suburban developments. This phenomenon has caused a high level of land fragmentation that is found responsible for: altering natural habitats by disrupting wildlife, hydrologic systems, energy flows, and biodiversity; decreasing agricultural and forest productivity; increasing the costs for public service provision and the over investment in the construction of transport infrastructure; the disappearance of culturally relevant open spaces and natural amenities. What is more, among the negative externalities documented over the years in relation to sprawl dynamics, is the adverse impacts on public health. Research demonstrated that “the adverse impacts of sprawl do not fall equally across the population”, but residents of sprawling areas tend to exercise less, weigh more, and have greater prevalence of 28 hypertension than residents of compact urban areas.  REMARKS ON WRIGHT, HOWARD, AND LE CORBUSIER’S APPROACHES MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Sustainable urban development, which utopian visionaries like Wright, Howard, and Le Corbusier were so passionately trying to reach, cannot materialize through simplistic sets of universal rules and standards, because they will always fall short of understanding the complexity of urban life. No perfect code or design for cities exists that can remedy all societal problems, improve the human condition, and instill the fundamental principles of sustainability and democracy that modern society seems to have partially lost over the years. For as many commenters suggest, approaching sustainable urban development by using non people-centric top-down visionary schemes can produce nothing but the illusion of a universal panacea for urban problems. 29 MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND AGENDA URBAN UTOPIAS THE SMART CITY APPROACH SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: THE ULTIMATE GOAL 30  THE SMART CITY APPROACH: IS IT A NEW UTOPIA? MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND In recent studies, Hügel (2017), Townsend (2013), and Datta (2015b) draw a parallel between the weaknesses of Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier’s utopian visions and those shortcomings related to the development of smart cities. This alignment is significant, because it exposes what a growing number of commenters studying these developments agree about: Smart cities represent a new chapter in the context of utopian urbanism, which is serving nothing but the interests of corporations operating in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. These commenters describe smart cities as a techno-led urban imaginary that is not “driven [...] by visionary architects and planners, but rather by the corporate sector” (Datta, 2015b: 8) and a development rooted in the same utopian conceptions of future cities that have emerged in the past. According to this literature, the development of smart cities is controlled by the corporate sector, and a new panacea is growing from the narrative they promote. This narrative brings ICT corporations in close collaboration with local and national governments and suggests that the massive uptake of high-tech fixes can cure all the imperfections that limit the sustainability of urban environments. 31  THE SMART CITY APPROACH: IS IT A NEW UTOPIA? MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND By sourcing evidence from a number of smart city experiences that failed to meet the expectations of adopting a smart city approach to urban sustainability, such as Dholera (Datta, 2015b), Masdar (Cugurullo, 2013), Milton Keynes (Valdez et al., 2018), Philadelphia (Wiig, 2015, 2016), Camden (Wiig, 2018), and Genoa (Grossi and Pianezzi, 2017), this literature exposes the limitations of a standard recipe, which oversimplifies the complexity of urban dynamics. In addition, it raises important questions about the contradictory nature of smart urbanism, which is accused of promoting urban development by means of technological determinism ideologies generating nothing but “elite enclaves, gated communities and other exclusive zones that exacerbate existing social divides and create new spaces for the ‘digerati’, corporate executives and other elites”. Assignment: Explore the views of following reported studies analyzing smart cities initiatives, providing your critical assessment on the viewpoints presented, with supporting evidence from the literature: Dholera (Datta, 2015b), Masdar (Cugurullo, 2013), Milton Keynes (Valdez et al., 2018), Philadelphia (Wiig, 2015, 2016), Camden (Wiig, 2018), and Genoa (Grossi and Pianezzi, 2017). 32  THE SMART CITY APPROACH: IS IT A NEW UTOPIA? MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND For example, Datta (2015b) examines the attempt made by Dholera to enable the smart city approach to urban sustainability. The findings indicate that the local government has adopted an approach that builds on the same premises as Chandigarh. As Datta points out, Dholera’s pathway toward becoming smart was affected by the same lack of consideration for the diversity of local socio-cultural landscapes and authoritarianism emerging from Le Corbusier’s unequal top-down logic, and this in turn led to a technocratic mode of governance responsible for (1) benefitting the political elite, middle classes, and a few corporations interested in expanding the global market for smart city technologies in India and (2) overshadowing interests of public value and the principles of justice and social equality. 33  ICT LED SMART CITIES: SONGDO INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS DISTRICT MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND The similarity between earlier utopian experiments and smart city developments continues being explored in research by Townsend (2013), where the attention shifts from Dholera to Songdo International Business District (IBD), a new business district built from scratch by using about 600ha of land reclaimed from the Yellow Sea of Incheon (Strickland, 2011). “Much as Broadacre City reimagined a thoroughly suburbanized America around the capabilities of the automobile, Songdo would reimagine the Korean metropolis around the potential of ubiquitous computing”. Songdo IBD has emerged from the collaboration between real estate developers, institutional investors, and the national government and industry, which decided to combine their different expectations. In this collaboration, the national government decided to build Songdo in order to showcase Korea as a world leader in smart city development. Cisco, as the technological partner leading the joint venture, saw this initiative as a 47 million dollar investment for acquiring the leadership in the smart city market by building one of the first urban operating systems and the world’s first urban environment in which everything would have been interconnected and automated. Songdo probably succeeded in becoming “the most wired city on Earth”. However, a number of commentators agree in suggesting that this smart city development has failed to display a sustainable blueprint for future cities (Yoo, 2017), because of its incapability to turn into something more than an experimental testbed for new technological solutions (Datta, 2015a; Townsend, 2013). Despite the technological advancement that is generated by the testing of innovative ubiquitous technologies, 34 Songdo IBD’s approach to smart city development is criticized for being an example of technical transformation that nurtures inequalities and is powered by elite coalitions and the “marketing rhetoric of the big technology companies”. MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND AGENDA URBAN UTOPIAS THE SMART CITY APPROACH SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: THE ULTIMATE GOAL 35  SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: THE ULTIMATE GOAL MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Therefore, as feared by the United Nations Environment Programme, this approach to smart city development can “reinforce the stark techno-apartheid that is splintering cities around the world” rather than deploying technological innovation for creating “the basis for greater equity, reduced levels of poverty, and greater opportunities to build” sustainable communities (UNEP, 2013: 46). 36  BATTY’S APPROACH MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND Isolation, stratification, fixation, regimentation, standardization,” rigidity, and non people-centric approaches are the main attributes entering into the conception of utopian cities and the unrealistic one-size-fits-all urban sustainability schemes they bring forward. These attributes cannot cope with the complexity of urban dynamics and the organic nature of cities. However, despite their top-down approach to urban development, utopian dreams are also rooted in a genuine and firmly held belief in progress. When seeking more sustainable urban development paths, the challenge is to find the right balance between this unquestionable confidence in progress, local development needs, and the sense of continuity and authenticity of urban environments, that is, their “genius loci” (Norberg-Schulz, 1980). This claim finds support in the comprehensive view of urban development dynamics that Michael Batty offers in the framework of complex system theories (see Batty, 1976, 2005a,b, 2008; Batty et al., 1999; Batty and Longley, 1994; Batty and Torrens, 2005; Batty and Xie, 1994). His work is remarkable in showing that bottom-up and top-down forces are not mutually exclusive of each other, but complementary in nature, possessing the capacity to instigate evolutionary processes that sustain urban development. 37  BATTY’S APPROACH MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND However, as history teaches, first there are the utopias (Foucault, 1984) and then the struggling in realizing where the balance is and extracting the possible from what seems impossible (Lefebvre, 1970). Lefebvre here tries to advocate for the potential benefits of the utopias. Nobody can deny that utopian visions are far from desirable models, because they attempt to impose universal values, which the world is supposed to be shaped by (Pinder, 2015: 30). However, despite these limitations, utopianism plays an important role in urban development dynamics and the bettering of such processes. This search for alternative futures has the potential to boost creative thinking, experimentation and invention, and the capacity to combine contemporary challenges with new radical solutions (Fernando et al., 2018; Lefebvre, 1970; Sargisson, 2000; Vanolo, 2016). Visionary schemes can act as sources of motivation and trigger beneficial transformative changes in society (Levitas, 1990, 2007, 2008). 38  PEOPLE-CENTERED SMART SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES MANAGING SMART CITIES UNDERSTANDING AND As well explained by Pinder (2015: 43) while exploring Henri Lefebvre’s attempt to prove the usefulness of utopia in urban studies, “the utopian gesture is the gesture which changes the coordinates of the possible. Rather than ‘idle dreaming about ideal society in total abstraction from real life,’ utopia is ‘a matter of innermost urgency’ when it is no longer possible to go on within the parameters of the possible.” This explains what Levitas (2007) describes as the “necessity of utopia” and its relevance in the evolutionary theory of cities (Batty and Marshall, 2009; Marshall, 2009). When looking at the smart city concept, the criticism emerging from the failures of the utopian corporate interpretation does nothing but generating doubts on the real potential for innovation embedded in the ICT-driven approach to urban sustainability that smart cities represent. However, these failures cannot be considered as a justification for reaching the conclusion that smart cities are simply a false dawn. Instead, they should arouse interest in looking beyond the urban utopia by developing that “critical understanding of smart urbanism” (Luque-Ayala and Marvin, 2015: 2113) that is necessary to shape a more progressive and human vision of smart city development (Hollands, 2008; Caragliu et al., 2011; Hollands, 2015). The challenge is to (1) avoid the hype and misleading information surrounding the utopia, which offers little more than a fuzzy vision of smart city development and 39 (2) find genuine and effective approaches that “make sense of smart cities” (Kitchin, 2015: 131) and offer a knowledge platform to build them in real-life environments.  UNDERSTANDING AND 40 MANAGING SMART CITIES THANK YOU