Digital Infrastructures and Urban Governance

Abstract

The urban built environment is underpinned by an increasingly complex digital infrastructure, which is posing a variety of unpredictable and unprecedented challenges for urban governance. The paper discusses how the new “hard” digital infrastructures such as broadband are accompanied by the need to understand the governance of public sector information; and in turn how this relates to the emergence of smart city strategies. The paper is illustrated using empirical examples drawn from Australian digital infrastructure development, with reference to the international landscape of “smart city” developments. It argues that there is a significant mismatch between the often small scale, bounded capabilities of municipal government, and the operational expertise and scope of technology firms.

支撑城市建筑环境的数字基础设施越来越复杂，于是对城市治理提出了前所 未有且不曾预见的挑战。本文探讨新的“硬”数字基础设施，如宽带，如何 与了解公共部门信息治理的需求相辅相成；这种关系又如何与智慧城市策略 的制定相关。文章以澳大利亚数字基础设施开发的经验为例，联系国际上 “智慧城市”的发展现状，指出规模小、能力有限的城市政府与技术公司的 规模和执行能力很不匹配。

Keywords:

• Smart cities
• digital infrastructure
• public sector information
• regional development
• broadband
• urban governance
• smart cities
• digital strategy
• open data
• policy mobility

Acknowledgements

The support of the Urban Studies Foundation Post-doctoral Fellowship Scheme (Barns) and Australian Research Council Future Fellowship scheme (McNeill) is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1. Ushaidi’s http://www.ushahidi.com/

2. https://www.mysociety.org/