Uneven Innovation: The Work of Smart Cities

323 Pages·2020·19.368 MB·English

by  Jennifer Clark

UNEVEN
INNOVATION
UNEVEN
INNOVATION
THE WORK OF SMART CITIES
JENNIFER CLARK
Columbia University Press New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2020 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Clark, Jennifer, 1972– author.
Title: Uneven innovation : the work of smart cities / Jennifer Clark.
Description: 1st Edition. | New York : Columbia University Press, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019026398 (print) | LCCN 2019026399 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231184960 (cloth) | ISBN 9780231184977 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780231545785 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cities and towns—Technological innovations. |
City planning—Technological innovations. | Cities and towns—Growth.
Classification: LCC HT153 .C583 2020 (print) | LCC HT153 (ebook) |
DDC 307.76—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026398
LC e-book record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026399
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design and illustration: Henry Sene Yee
Scaffolding image: © Shutterstock
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations vii
Preface xi
1 Uneven Innovation: The Evolution of the
Urban Technology Project 1
2 Smart Cities as Solutions 31
3 Smart Cities as Emerging Markets 57
4 Smart Cities as the New Urban Entrepreneurship 95
5 Smart Cities as Urban Innovation Networks 125
6 Smart Cities as Participatory Planning 156
7 Smart Cities as the New Uneven Development 181
8 Conclusions: The Local Is (Not) the Enemy 201
Epilogue: The View from Inside the
Urban Innovation Project 217
Notes 231
Bibliography 267
Index 295
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURES
Figure 2.1: “Intelligent Infrastructure” 35
Figure 2.2: Smart Card Systems for Public Transit 36
Figure 2.3: Turning the Amazon Logo Upside Down 39
Figure 2.4: Public Opposition to Subsidies for Private Development 40
Figure 2.5: Connecting the Tech Sector’s Tax Avoidance Strategies to
Local Expectations about Corporate Citizenship 41
Figure 3.1: Big Belly Trash Can in Melbourne, Australia 65
Figure 3.2: Big Belly Trash Can in Nottingham, England 66
Figure 3.3: Integrated Urban Parking System 80
Figure 3.4: Uses of Real-Time Data for Car Parks 80
Figure 3.5: Industrial Data Production Process 89
Figure 4.1: Regeneration and Reinvestment Projects near
Brindleyplace and Gas Street Basin, Birmingham, England 98
Figure 4.2: Regeneration and Reinvestment Projects near
Brindleyplace and The Mailbox, Gas Street Basin, Birmingham,
England 99
Figure 4.3: The BeltLine Entrance to Ponce City Market, Atlanta 102
Figure 4.4: A “Maker Space” in the Ponce City Market, Atlanta 103
Figure 4.5: Beginnings of the Redevelopment of the Brooklyn
Navy Yard 103
Figure 4.6: Building 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard 104
viii Illustrations
Figure 4.7: Sign with the Georgia State Capitol’s “Gold Dome” in the
Background, Atlanta 105
Figure 4.8: A LinkNYC Kiosk Integrates Private Advertising with
Public Services 106
Figure 4.9: LinkNYC Kiosk Incorporates Emergency Public Services:
911 Reporting 107
Figure 4.10: LinkNYC Kiosk Combining Public Phone,
Public Wi-Fi, Device Charging Station, Emergency Services,
and Advertising 108
Figure 4.11: A Traditional Kiosk Providing One-Way Information
Flow and No Connectivity at the Old Birmingham Central
Library 108
Figure 5.1: Contained Folding Bicycle Service, Birmingham,
England 149
Figure 5.2: Bicycling Rentals with Fixed Docking Stations,
Cluj-Napoca, Romania 150
Figure 5.3: Bicycle Rentals with Fixed Docking and Adjacent to Union
Station, Denver 150
Figure 5.4: Scooters from Competing Companies on the Sidewalk in
Washington, DC 151
Figure 5.5: Docked Scooters as Fixed Urban Sensor Systems. Moscow,
Russia 151
Figure 5.6: The Launch of the City of Atlanta’s North Avenue Smart
Corridor Testbed Project at The Ponce City Market 153
Figure 8.1: A Parking Garage for Bicycles Owned by Individuals,
Munich, Germany 206
Figure 8.2: A Secure, Designated Bicycle Parking Space in a Historic
District, Old Montreal, Canada 207
Figure 8.3: The Cheonggyecheon, Seoul, South Korea 208
Figure 8.4: The High Line, New York City 209
Figure Epilogue.1: The Georgia Institute of Technology’s University–
City Partnership Team at the Launch of the City of Atlanta’s
North Avenue Smart Corridor Project at The Ponce City Market,
Atlanta 219
Illustrations ix
TABLES
Table 3.1: The Scales of Smart Cities Markets 69
Table 4.1: Work Space as a Service 119
Table 4.2: Testing Explanations for the Rise of Flexible Work
Spaces 120
Table 4.3: Common Services Provided by Coworking Firms 122
Table 5.1: A Typology of Urban Innovation Networks 138
PREFACE
T
HE smart cities project—as a discourse and a practice—
first came on the popular scene with initiatives such as
IBM Smarter Cities in the early 2010s. As with many
technology initiatives, the novelty of the smart cities project
captured the public’s imagination. Technology firms, the auto
industry, and business consultants and advisers argued that self-
driving cars would soon disrupt urban transportation systems and
reshape the built environment as we know it. Soon policy makers,
urban planners, and urban designers came to see the smart cit-
ies project as an opportunity to integrate the new technologies
that were changing industries, including advanced manufactur-
ing, energy, into the infrastructure and operations of cities. The
resulting intelligent infrastructure, it was thought, would then
serve as the platform for sustained economic growth. The smart
cities project thus became an economic development project.
In February 2016, the President’s Council of Advisors on
Science and Technology (PCAST) released a major report,
“Technology and the Future of Cities,” which outlined a strat-
egy to guide federal investment and engagement in smart cities
initiatives. Although the future of smart cities initiatives and the
xii Preface
policy impact of the original PCAST report remains uncertain,
the report itself was revealing. Only a small number of the more
than 100 contributors to the report represented the perspective
or expertise of the social sciences that are dedicated to cities and
the urban scale: urban policy, urban planning, urban geography,
urban history, urban economics, or urban administration.
The growing interest in smart cities and the expansion of
smart cities programs and projects has thus presented some
interesting questions for the academic community: where does
one learn about smart cities? Who teaches about smart cities?
What discipline or degree programs prepare students to design,
implement, and evaluate smart cities? Increasingly, the smart
cities project is challenging the established social science disci-
plines to rethink their own boundaries and knowledge claims.
The question then becomes, who will define what is required to
be a participant in or an analyst of the smart cities project? Who
will define the processes and practices that govern the future
profession of urban innovation?
Ultimately, the smart cities project is rarely seen for what
it is: a technology diffusion challenge operating in a dynamic
and contested space between the public and the private sector.
Technology development is the easy part; the real challenge is
that the design and deployment of these models into this lim-
inal space where governance, regulation, access, participation,
and representation are unclear and the “operating standards”
are yet to be fully articulated.
In this book, I tackle that challenge by providing a framework
for analyzing the smart cities project that is grounded in the anal-
ysis of economic development and embedded in economic geog-
raphy’s established discourse on uneven development. The result
is a way of thinking about urban innovation that recenters the
analysis on scale, markets, and regulation. The book produces
this