IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-02007328.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Thinking the organisational and managerial challenges of intelligent towns and cities: a critical approach to the Smart Cities phenomenon

Author

Listed:
  • Norbert Lebrument

    (CleRMa - Clermont Recherche Management - ESC Clermont-Ferrand - École Supérieure de Commerce (ESC) - Clermont-Ferrand - UCA [2017-2020] - Université Clermont Auvergne [2017-2020])

  • Catherine de La Robertie

Abstract

In just a few years, Smart Cities have become the object of all expectations. Smart Cities, supposedly improving the urban lifestyle while making the use of resources required for various urban activities more efficient, are based on a blind belief in the neutrality of the technological systems that structure them. However, the neutrality of the urban data collection and analysis technological systems is not self-evident, and raises the question: what relationship (s) with reality do they establish? What true freedom do they leave to the inhabitants? How is control and surveillance of the human activities they bring about to be interpreted? Through a firmly critical approach to Smart Cities, the objective of this article is precisely to answer these questions while enlisting the conceptual frameworks of the works by Heidegger and Foucault. By enlisting these two theoretical frameworks, two main characteristics of Smart Cities are highlighted and analysed. According to a Heideggerian approach, Smart Cities appear to be an organisational phenomenon, pertaining to enframing of reality where the existence of city-dwellers becomes a resource to be used and controlled in the same way as other resources. According to a Foucauldian approach, they are revealed to be a managerial phenomenon where disciplinary power is expressed across the various urban activities via technological systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Norbert Lebrument & Catherine de La Robertie, 2019. "Thinking the organisational and managerial challenges of intelligent towns and cities: a critical approach to the Smart Cities phenomenon," Post-Print halshs-02007328, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02007328
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Handan Vicdan & Mar Pérezts & A. Fuat Firat, 2021. "License to heal : Understanding a healthcare Platform Organization as a Multi-level Surveillant Assemblage," Post-Print hal-03207191, HAL.
    2. LEBRUMENT, Norbert & ZUMBO-LEBRUMENT, Cédrine & ROCHETTE, Corinne & ROULET, Thomas J., 2021. "Triggering participation in smart cities: Political efficacy, public administration satisfaction and sense of belonging as drivers of citizens’ intention," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    3. Handan Vicdan & Mar Perezts, & A. Fuat Firat, 2021. "License to heal: Understanding a healthcare Platform Organization as a Multi-level Surveillant Assemblage," Post-Print hal-03173184, HAL.

    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:hal:journl:halshs-02007328. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.