The 'Smart City' Card

Author(s): HIMANSHU BURTE

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , NOVEMBER 15, 2014, Vol. 49, No. 46
(NOVEMBER 15, 2014), pp. 22-25
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24480950

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COMMENTARY

The
The'Smart City'
'Smart Card Card
City'
smart. Admittedly, Indian cities should
work much better than they do, even
with the shaky and skeletal order of ex
isting data, physical infrastructure, gov
himanshu burte ernance arrangements, administrative
HIMANSHU BURTE

systems and other provis

The
The "smart city"city"
"smart idea is extremely
idea is extremely I V lhe union budget for 201
attractive,
attractive, especially
especially
to the to the I nounced the National Democrat
middle
middle and and
upperUpper classes who Alliance (nda) government's
classes who
, . mitment to create a hundred new "smart gover
experience
experience Indian cities cities
Indian as being
as being cities" as satellites of existing citi
anything
anything butbut
smart. It is a concept
smart. It is a concept drama of this statement was m
frequently
frequently thrown
thrown about butabout but much enthusiasm and some sce
lacking
lacking a clear definition
a clear - though - though in;he preSS: Ma.f C0mmen
definition
# # industry and civil society welcomed the sidered inadequate for current needs
at heart
at heartit it
hashas emerged
emerged mainly
mainly as some also pointed out that and need to be significantly reinforc
as though
an
an instrument
instrumentto make cities cities it came with an inadequate financial upgraded, or new ones produced in
to make
more
more competitive
competitivein
ineconomic
economic allocation in relation to its promise, and sweeping initiative like jnnurm. By a
terms.
terms. With
Withreal
realestate
estateand
andurban
urban that smartness might mean more than large'the "smart city"idea as presen
just technology. in the budget appears to be read by
infrastructure
infrastructure offering a great
offering a great Meanwhile, industry has sensed a big enthusiasts and critics (lik
opportunity
opportunity to to
global capital,
global it is it is new market opening up. Cement manu- for smarter citizens) a
capital,
aa card
cardwaiting
waitingto to
be played rightright facturers are reported to be enlarging extension of the latter be
be played
inIndia.
in India production capacities while information speech also clearly stated
technology firms gird up for bidding posed smart cities would be new
battles over the new market in India, lites of existing cities.
scaling up from experiments in smaller In this article I take a quick loo
projects with private developers, includ- some of the tacit and explicit defin
ing in new faux "cities" like Lavasa and ascriptions and debates around t
Palava near Mumbai. Of course, they cept in the broader academic, polic
might only have been waiting for a sig- ular and industry literature. This
nal that the new government would per- help sharpen a critical understan
sist with the United Progressive Alliance what is involved in this issue.
(upa) government's concept. The smart neither an exhaustive review
city idea is not the nda government's detailed discussion of the myriad
policy innovation, except for the magic cate and important issues (inclu
number of 100. The Delhi Mumbai In- technical ones) that open up when
dustrial Corridor (dmic) had smart cities concept and its career are exam
in its plans at least since 2011. Moreover, closely. It is only a preliminary
Kamal Nath, the urban development into the issue. I shall only sket
minister in the upa government had al- broad contours of the concept
ready announced in 2012 (Mint 2012) stands (including some important
that smart cities would be a feature of ing critiques in the West), and p
the proposed second phase of the now my preliminary critical reflectio
buried Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban the proposed migration of this
Renewal Mission (jnnurm). That is also to Indian cities.
perhaps why the smart cities provision is
being read as the new government's ex- 'Smart City' Discourse
tension of the jnnurm in spite of the "Smart city" is a concept fre
much smaller financial allocation com- thrown about confidently, but lac
pared to the earlier more comprehen- widely accepted definition. That
sive, if poorly performing, programme.1 necessarily a problem, except t
As a magic bullet, the smart city idea many other concepts originating
Himanshu Burte (hburte@gmail.com) teaches is extremely attractive, especially to the techno-managerial m
at the School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute middle and upper classes who experience "green buildings", for i
of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Indian cities as being anything but vance as well as urgency i
22 November 15, 2014 vol XLix no 46 E35EZ Economic & Political weekly

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 : COMMENTARY

be self-evident and beyond debate by the into the smart city discourse generally smart in this sense, in varyin
time it seeps through the media sphere play a supporting role and are always Other researchers also routin
into the policy domain. conceptualised by proponents in ways efficiencies achieved throug
Smart city definitions or characterisa- that must avoid obstructing it. Many modes of e-government espe
tions appear to attend broadly to two values that the majority of dwellers, routine administration, through
different aspects of urbanism. The term thinkers and even critical professionals tors like the number of adm
smart city sometimes describes achieved consider central do not necessarily enter forms that can be submitte
reality or desired outcome (in other the discourse. cally by citizens (Caragliu et al 2011).
words, fact), and at others a strategy for Naturally then, information and corn
achieving such a reality. Importantly, munication technologies (icrrs) have been Two Tracks in Narrative
discussions often switch confusingly central to the concept of "smartness" for Over time, two other tracks have also
between the two meanings, sometimes cities (Hollands 2008: 307). Thus the been raised for attention in the eve
even lapsing into conflation. Both words smart city of popular idealisation seeks evolving smart city narrative. One focus
in the term are regularly interpreted in to leverage various computational, net- on human and social capital, especiall
different ways. So, "smart" may be under- working, self-regulational, and respon- that of relevance to business innovatio
stood as in "intelligent" or responsive sive capacities that icts can embed into and competitiveness. Smart cities are
technology, and also in the more com- administrative and infrastructural sys- understood to be places with a concen
mon sense of "clever" and "intelligent" tems (like transport, power and water tration of highly educated, and "creative"
when applied to people. The word city supply, for instance) and enable more workers (Caragliu et al 2011:67). Strategi
secures the attractive claim of compre- effective, efficient, responsive and even advice to cities on this track suggest
hensiveness (of promised change across resilient management of the city. that cities seeking economic success
an entire urban social space) but in For instance, the Smart Cities Readi- should create conditions that attract
examples and proposals usually appears ness Guide of the Smart Cities Council, highly skilled (and, implicitly, more af
restricted to specific sectors (water, an international industry-founded advo- fluent) workforce to cities to spur "inn
energy, transport) or townships and cacy platform, describes a smart city as vation". Among other things, this can b
smaller parts of cities. "one that knows about itself and makes done through opportunities for close
The two kinds of descriptions - fact or itself more known to its populace". This interaction between academicians, bus
strategy - are combined in different ways definition considers urban "hardware" nesses and government, and the creation
in different definitions, often to coax (the built environment, equipment, even of "liveable" environments for this wor
governments towards a particular ap- garbage trucks) as the city. The guide force to reside in. The other track links
proach. A single description or défini- suggests that the collection, communi- the ideal of sustainability to the smart
tions may seek to integrate information- cation and processing of data are central city strategy, sometimes bringing alon
al, technological, governance, ecological to the efficient management of cities with it other widely desired ideals like
and social domains without always criti- (Smart Cities Council 2013: 2-4) that are participatory governance into the di
cally problematising mutual relation- increasingly "systems of systems - pow- course. The usual examples of the sus
ships of dependence, conflict or impact er, transportation, emergency response, tainability benefits of smart systems i
as with this one: built environment, etc - with each one urban infrastructure include smart me
We believe a city to be smart when invest- affecting all the others" (Smart Cities ters that communicate between consu
ments in human and social capital and tradi- Council 2013:4). ers and energy providers, and help opt
tional (transport) and modern (ict) commu- in this vision, computers help opti- mise supply and demand balance acros
nication infrastructure fuel sustainable eco- . ,,, , , , ,
nomic growth and a high quality of life, with mise and balance ^PP1? and demand on the elect
a wise management of natural resources, electricity networks, help select ideal various w
through participatory governance (Caragliu routes for delivery fleets to minimise detects fl
et al 2011:70). fuel costs, and the energy usage of entire networks, an
At heart, the smart city concept has high rises is optimised for maximum routinely inv
emerged mainly as an instrument or comfort at minimum cost. As live pilots, Evidently,
strategy to make cities more competitive the guide cites cities like Singapore and tions of th
economically, especially in the devel- Rio de Janeiro whose data processing wide range of
oped world, particularly in Europe where systems (specific components and func- reference
the European Union (eu) has spurred tions within operational sectors) are ance, sustai
research and capacity building on it. Op- capable also of predicting traffic jams pation (Ca
erational, and economic efficiency, thus and locations of the next flood, respec- missing
become dominant preoccupations, both tively, to enable pre-emptive or mitiga- the various
in themselves and in relation to the tion actions (Smart Cities Council 2013: that smarten
capacity of a city to attract businesses. 3). Indeed, a large number of cities in these very
All other values that find their way the industrialised world are already socio-politic
Economic & Political weekly BD59 November 15, 2014 vol xlix no 46 23

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COMMENTARY

city, in other words, is a city without identified smart cities as a promising class urbanism of smart cities for the
politics. In fact, it is a city of centralised new "line", and invested in policy and upper classes and the creaky old urban
control as the supply-side (or control intra-industry advocacy by building ism of existing cities for the creaky old
side) emphasis of the enthusiastic aca- platforms like Smart Cities Council and middle and lower classes. So the two
demie and industry discourse reveals. spun slogans like "smart is the new preoccupations in the discourse outlined
Make no mistake. The social is not left green" (Smart Cities Council 2014). The earlier on, of technological sophistica
out of the conception of the world in the uk government's 2013 background paper tion and attracting a skilled workforce
enthusiastic discourse around smart cities, on smart cities reveals that the markets (which usually implies excluding the
It is in fact often implicitly cast as the in smart versions of energy, transport, much bigger unskilled workforce from
problem that smart technology can solve, water, waste and assisted living would the space and from all consideration),
An article on the Smart Cities Council be worth $408 billion by 2020 (Depart- converge clearly in this vision.
website sees smart cities addressing prob- ment for Business Innovation and Skills, Like much other centralised urban re
lems of "social, political, environmental p 12). Not surprisingly, the "smart city talk" newal intent, moreover, the 2014-15
and energy instability in urban regions" has also been interrogated as a form of Budget also appeared to see the new
caused by overpopulation "by implement- corporate storytelling (Söderström and smart cities not as human places, but as
ing modern infrastructure enabling 'smart' Paasche 2014). In this reading, focusing "spatial products" that can be produced
and 'intelligent' solutions and techno- on ibm securing a trademark on the term through state enablement and private in
logies in the cities of today" (Smart Cities "smarter cities", urban problems are vestment (Easterling 2005). The empha
Council 2014). framed in such a way by companies that sis is also clearly on the supply side: firm
The invocation of participation, com- their services and technological prod- intentions are expected to lead to the sys
munity, etc, too does not go very far. ucts become "obligatory passage points" tematic production of the new cities. The
Despite representations in smart city dis- through which urban solutions can be socio-spatial field of intervention is prob
courses about the importance of local com- reached. Could the smart city talk in ably imagined as being transparent to
munities and social learning, an overall em- India be political storytelling working the intentional drive of a decisive central
phases on business-driven technology and . , . , ,, , , . . . . ,
v .. . ,,, . j . , to other purposes, on the increasingly r
gentnncation could be interpreted to imply r r 0 0 r
that this urban form is relatively uncon- important site in India, that of the urba
cerned with class inequality...inclusion... renewed commitment to special economic
and social justice (Hollands 2008:312). The Budget's 'Smart City' zones - through the use of state pow
In general, in his pioneering critique, The "smart city" imagined by Finance But already, the bluff may have been
Hollands (2008) observes three charac- Minister Arun Jaitley was only sketchily called on this assumption, and the e
teristics of a discourse organised around outlined in the budget speech. Perhaps phasis on satellite cities may well be
terms like creative, intelligent, wired, tellingly, we are first introduced to the der question as at least one recent pres
digital and smart in relation to cities, concept in the discussion on foreign di- report suggests (The Times of India 201
First, the way these terms are used rect investment (fdi), indicating a possi
suggests some linkages between or even bly important aspect of the actual role Critical Questions
conflation of technological and social visualised for it in smart cities. There is a Perhaps, one should not read too mu
transformations. Second, the relation proposal to relax conditions for fdi en- into the cryptic announcements in th
between the hype of claimed smartness try in smart cities from 50,000 to 20,000 budget speech. Equally, the annou
and the real effectiveness and benefits square metres, and $10 million to $5 mil- ment offers a chance to examine a
in a range of real cases remains to be lion. Given the definitional ambiguity emerging concept for its relevance to I
validated. Does all that fancy technology around the term, the most inexpensive dian cities. So how should we look at t
(or data conversations, real time or not) digital fix would be enough for fdi to en- many other expected proposals t
actually make a big difference at a ter a large number of real estate projects "smarten" Indian cities, even on their
reasonable cost and equitably? Third, using this provision. own merits? I take an obvious point as
the use of these terms implies "a positive The Government of India's smart city already made: that it is necessary to f
and rather uncritical stance towards is also clearly envisaged as a secluded, the basics before we aim for more tech
urban development. Which city, by defi- techno-managerially smart space for the no-managerially advanced systems.
nition, does not want to be smart, créa- elite whose desire for liveable environ
tive and cultural?" ments the finance minister shows excep Economic&PoliticalwEEKLY
It is obvious that the lack of a fixed tional sensitivity to. Smart cities are pro
available at
meaning can be useful in building con- posed as isolated satellite cities of the
Oxford Bookstore-Mumbai
sensus around an aspirational buzz- "neo-middle class" (a coy euphemistic
Apeejay House
word. As with "green" and "sustainable", neologism standing in probably for the
3, Dinshaw Vacha Road
definitional ambiguity allows convenient less acceptable "neo-rich"). This implies, Mumbai400020
and often paradoxical interpretations. It surprisingly clearly, a class-based spatial Ph: 66364477
is worth noting that industry has already categorisation of populations: world

24 November 15, 2014 vol XLix no 46 DDES Economic&PoliticalwEEKLY

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 Commentary

we cannot build and maintain roads asked are social and political in nature, contrasts fundamentally with t
without potholes, it is absurd to aim for Who is the city to be made smart for, in ing of the term in industr
intelligent pavements. exactly what way, and who is to pay for discourse. If our cities actua
In principle, as Hollands (2008) sug- it, be excluded from the benefits and spite of inadequate or dysfunc
gests, there is no reason why any city, how? Are there significant dependencies frastructure, poor managem
even in the developing world, would not that cities (and their inhabitants) walk tion, and oppressive polici
want to be smart. A better information into with multinational technological put down, without exaggera
infrastructure, increased operational, companies (or such capital, more gener- situated awareness, generosi
economic, energy efficiencies, and a ally) by subscribing to the smart city deed, smartness, of the p
better quality of life for all, are certainly idea? What would be the long-term ground. These include not o
desirable ideals. Even within the techni- social, political and economic implica- inhabitants, but also municipa
cal domain however, as ever there are tions of such vulnerabilities? More spe- sometimes delivering agains
obvious questions to be asked of every cifically, do we want to raise a clutch of temic odds. Clearly then, adj
new solution, especially a glamorous, new or old cities (or their parts) to the acknowledge broader complex
hi-tech and expensive one. Among others, highest possible levels of techno-mana- more progressive goals are
these centre around the appropriateness gerial sophistication (potentially along a start, we could renew the
of the problem and solution definition (is with greater centralised control over cit- better visions of Indian ci
the "problem" technological at its core? izen life) while the majority of urban proposing "just" (and not ju
What exactly does the solution promise? spaces and societies languish at the bot- or "wise" (and not just smar
Do we need high technology, or just a torn of that ladder? more important adjectives, in response
better tendering and quality control to the "smart" proposal,
processes, to fix the recurrent infra- An Attractive Card
structural breakdowns?). They also in- In a situation where
NOTE urban infrastruc- NOte
volve a clear and systematically debata- tural and real estate development
A newspaper reportin India
implied ; the
that A newspape
smart city
initiative might
ble operational definition of the concept offers a great investment be only one prong
opportunity of the newm
initiative
c u _ „ . . . 1 r , , ,111 , . NDA government's version NDAof the centrally
government's ad
version of the centrally ad
of "smartness" in this case, a rational for roving local
ministered and global
and funded capita
urban renewal pro
consideration of other alternative solu- smart gram
city idea
begun underis a card
JNNURM waiting
(To/ 2014).

tions, a realistic assessment of the rela- played right. It combines defi

tion between hype and expected effica- ambiguity
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Economic & Political weekly DCS November 15, 2014 vol xlix no 46 25

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