Scrutinizing the Smart City: Discerning Differences between Academic Critiques and Practitioner Challenges

Abstract

Through semi-structured interviews with winners, finalists, and unsuccessful applicants in Infrastructure Canada’s Smart Cities Challenge (SCC), this study aims to, via a post-hoc outcome evaluation, explore the gap between academic criticisms of smart cities versus the challenges that public administrators face. Interviews find that smart city competitions do succeed in fostering strategic planning and public engagement at the municipal government level. However, sustaining these successes without further investment and capacity building is unlikely in today's climate. Against the backdrop of academic criticisms of techno-solutionism, corporate overdependence, and panoptic surveillance, findings paint a different reality, one where public administrators are focused on realizing outcomes for residents, however they struggle to get technology-oriented to the implementation phase. The concerns of academia, to public administrators, seem distant - and manageable given time and resources. This research provides valuable policy lessons for cities worldwide at the intersection of technology and public governance.