Elaborating the urbanism in smart urbanism: distilling relevant dimensions for a comprehensive analysis of Smart City approaches

Figures & data

Table 1. Comparing smart urbanism and critical urbanism.

	Smart urbanism		Critical urbanism
	Mainstream	Critical
Origin	Developed from a policy, informed by Science of Technology Studies (STS)		Developed from scholarly debate
Main rational	Technology, algorithms and data can solve pressing urban problems	The city is shaped through technology, algorithms and data	The city is shaped through capitalism
Object of study	How technology, innovation and data can improve the urban way of life	How technology, innovation and data shape the urban way of life	How capitalism shapes the urban way of life
Urban ontology	The city as a node or bounded entity; technological innovation leads to progress	Not debated; questions the relationship between technology and urban change	The city as a process going beyond boundaries; the relationship between urban change and capitalism is problematic
Representation of the urban and urban issues	Objective, data-driven, utopian imaginaries	Subjective, not value free; calls for recognizing multiple realities	Socially constructed, space for multiple realities
Urban governance	Top-down, corporate entrepreneurialism	Calls for recognizing contributions from bottom-up initiatives; inclusive	Calls for recognizing contributions from bottom-up initiatives; inclusive
Diversity within cities	Not problematized	Acknowledges diversity and inequalities across groups	Acknowledges diversity and inequalities across groups
Global urban diversity	Universal and prescriptive	Recognizes importance of situated context; problematizes lack of diverse cases studies	‘Ordinary cities’; recognizing diversity