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Abstract
This paper explores IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge as an example of global smart city policymaking. The evolution of IBM's smart city thinking is discussed, then a case study of Philadelphia's online workforce education initiative, Digital On-Ramps, is presented as an example of IBM's consulting services. Philadelphia's rationale for working with IBM and the translation of IBM's ideas into locally adapted initiatives is considered. The paper argues that critical scholarship on the smart city over-emphasizes IBM's agency in driving the discourse. Unpacking how and why cities enrolled in smart city policymaking with IBM places city governments as key actors advancing the smart city paradigm. Two points are made about the policy mobility of the smart city as a mask for entrepreneurial governance. (1) Smart city efforts are best understood as examples of outward-looking policy promotion for the globalized economy. (2) These policies proposed citywide benefit through a variety of digital governance augmentations, unlike established urban, economic development projects such as a downtown redevelopment. Yet, the policy rhetoric of positive change was always oriented to fostering globalized business enterprise. As such, implementing the particulars of often-untested smart city policies mattered less than their capacity to attract multinational corporations.
Acknowledgements
An early version of this work was presented at the ‘Smart Urbanism: Utopian Vision or False Dawn' workshop at Durham University, 20–21 June 2013. Many thanks to the organizers and attendees for their feedback. The author also wishes to thank two anonymous reviewers at City for their critique, the advice of City's editorial board, as well as mentoring and insight from Michele Masucci, Charles Kaylor, Youngjin Yoo and Melissa Gilbert at Temple University, Rob Kitchin at National University of Ireland and Renee Tapp at Clark University.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This work was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship in Temple University's Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Temple University's Urban Apps and Maps Studios.
Notes
Additional information
Alan Wiig is based at the Department of Geography and Urban Studies, College of Liberal Arts, Temple University.