Smart cities at risk: Systemic risk drivers in the blind spot of long‐term governance

Abstract

AbstractIn this article, we analyze “digital massification” in smart cities, that is, an ever‐growing number of market participants, consumers, and Internet of Things devices with simultaneous accommodation of users to increasing disturbances and inconveniences due to data congestion—as a driver for systemic risk. We argue that digital massification phenomena largely escape societal awareness due to their protracted evolution and are therefore still in the blind spot of long‐term governance. Our analysis makes methodological use of historical and relational analogy, and we introduce and elaborate concepts and terms that allow us to discuss the evolutionary nature of massification, that is, the foreseeable increasing probability of the occurrence of trigger events. Using the analogy to the history of road traffic congestion, we deduce that digital massification will most likely lead to a future “risk transition” where tolerated disturbances and inconveniences of the present will turn into systemic impacts. This insight calls for heightened sensitivity in governance to massification phenomena to ensure the long‐term resilience of smart cities.