IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v51y2014i5p883-898.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Smartmentality: The Smart City as Disciplinary Strategy

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Vanolo

Abstract

The paper analyses the concept of the smart city in critical perspective, focusing on the power/knowledge implications for the contemporary city. On the one hand, smart city policies support new ways of imagining, organising and managing the city and its flows; on the other, they impress a new moral order on the city by introducing specific technical parameters in order to distinguish between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ city. The smart city discourse may therefore be a powerful tool for the production of docile subjects and mechanisms of political legitimisation. The paper is largely based on theoretical reflections and uses smart city politics in Italy as a case study. The paper analyses how the smart city discourse proposed by the European Union has been reclassified to produce new visions of the ‘good city’ and the role of private actors and citizens in the management of urban development.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Vanolo, 2014. "Smartmentality: The Smart City as Disciplinary Strategy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(5), pages 883-898, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:51:y:2014:i:5:p:883-898
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098013494427
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098013494427
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098013494427?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Brand, 2007. "Green Subjection: The Politics of Neoliberal Urban Environmental Management," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 616-632, September.
    2. David Gibbs & Rob Krueger, 2012. "Fractures in Meta‐Narratives of Development: An Interpretive Institutionalist Account of Land Use Development in the Boston City‐Region," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 363-380, March.
    3. Maria Kaika & Erik Swyngedouw, 2000. "Fetishizing the modern city: the phantasmagoria of urban technological networks," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 120-138, March.
    4. Sally Weller, 2012. "The Regional Dimensions of the 'Transition to a Low-carbon Economy' The Case of Australia's Latrobe Valley," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(9), pages 1261-1272, October.
    5. Robert G. Hollands, 2008. "Will the real smart city please stand up?," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 303-320, December.
    6. Eve Chiapello & Luc Boltanski, 1999. "Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme," Post-Print hal-00680085, HAL.
    7. Mike Raco & Rob Imrie, 2000. "Governmentality and Rights and Responsibilities in Urban Policy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(12), pages 2187-2204, December.
    8. Jamie Peck, 2005. "Struggling with the Creative Class," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 740-770, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Quitzow, Leslie & Rohde, Friederike, 2022. "Imagining the smart city through smart grids? Urban energy futures between technological experimentation and the imagined low-carbon city," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 341-359.
    2. Leslie Quitzow & Friederike Rohde, 2022. "Imagining the smart city through smart grids? Urban energy futures between technological experimentation and the imagined low-carbon city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(2), pages 341-359, February.
    3. Certomà, Chiara & Corsini, Filippo & Frey, Marco, 2020. "Hyperconnected, receptive and do-it-yourself city. An investigation into the European “imaginary” of crowdsourcing for urban governance," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    4. Davide Ponzini & Ugo Rossi, 2010. "Becoming a Creative City: The Entrepreneurial Mayor, Network Politics and the Promise of an Urban Renaissance," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(5), pages 1037-1057, May.
    5. Adam Arvidsson, 2011. "Creativity, Brands, Finance and Beyond: Notes Towards a Theoretical Perspective on City Branding," Chapters, in: Andy Pike (ed.), Brands and Branding Geographies, chapter 18, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. David B. Audretsch & Erik E. Lehmann & Nikolaus Seitz, 2021. "Amenities, subcultures, and entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 571-591, February.
    7. Meghamrita Chakraborty, 2023. "Linking Migration, Diversity and Regional Development in India," Journal of Development Policy and Practice, , vol. 8(1), pages 55-72, January.
    8. Bernard Billaudot, 2009. "L'ambivalence de la RSE. L'illusion de la coordination par le contrat," Post-Print halshs-00515194, HAL.
    9. Tuba Bakıcı & Esteve Almirall & Jonathan Wareham, 2013. "A Smart City Initiative: the Case of Barcelona," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 4(2), pages 135-148, June.
    10. Andrew Clarke & Lynda Cheshire, 2018. "The post-political state? The role of administrative reform in managing tensions between urban growth and liveability in Brisbane, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(16), pages 3545-3562, December.
    11. Paola Panuccio, 2019. "Smart Planning: From City to Territorial System," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-15, December.
    12. Kate Golebiowska, 2016. "Are Peripheral Regions Benefiting from National Policies Aimed at Attracting Skilled Migrants? Case Study of the Northern Territory of Australia," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 947-971, August.
    13. Andrew M. Wood, 2004. "Domesticating Urban Theory? US Concepts, British Cities and the Limits of Cross-national Applications," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(11), pages 2103-2118, October.
    14. Francis Leo Collins & Wardlow Friesen, 2011. "Making the Most of Diversity? The Intercultural City Project and a Rescaled Version of Diversity in Auckland, New Zealand," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(14), pages 3067-3085, November.
    15. Robert Boyer, 2007. "Growth strategies and poverty reduction: the institutional complementarity hypothesis," Working Papers halshs-00587703, HAL.
    16. Fabien Jakob, 2022. "Collective action towards a greener order of worth: protecting a common cultural and natural heritage," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 32(1), pages 625-642, June.
    17. Thomas Amossé & Gaëtan Flocco & Josette Lefèvre & Jean-Marie Pernot & Héloïse Petit & Frédéric Rey & Michèle Tallard & Carole Tuchszirer & Catherine Vincent, 2012. "Les organisations patronales. Continuités et mutations des formes de représentation du patronat," Working Papers hal-00684075, HAL.
    18. Ida Andersson & Laura James, 2018. "Altruism or entrepreneurialism? The co-evolution of green place branding and policy tourism in Växjö, Sweden," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(15), pages 3437-3453, November.
    19. Jean-Pierre Bréchet & Hélène Journé-Michel & Nathalie Schieb-Bienfait, 2008. "Figures de la conception et de l’innovation dans l’artisanat," Post-Print hal-01417042, HAL.
    20. Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq & Alavaiola Faumatu & Maha Hussein & Muhammad Laiq Ur Rahman Shahid & Nitin Muttil, 2020. "Smart City-Ranking of Major Australian Cities to Achieve a Smarter Future," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-19, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:51:y:2014:i:5:p:883-898. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.