smart cities variety and homogeneity Dr David Murakami

smart cities variety and homogeneity Dr David Murakami Wood Canada Research Chair in Surveillance Studies, Queen’s University, Ontario dmw@queensu. ca

introduction § Policy and press now full of examples of movement towards smart cities § Business, government, individuals increasingly generative of and dependent on, ‘big data’ § Socio-technical context § Prehistory of smart cities § Variety of smart cities § Standards, brands and open platforms

my project § UBICITY: 5 year, 3 country comparative study § theoretical attention has been paid to the coming of ubicomp / ubisurv and cities – often apocalyptic / dystopian § But critical empirical political economic work on aprogress and development of smart city lacking § No specific projects that span the range from military security-related to smart city initiatives § Untested assertions on human rights issues, e. g. ‘privacy is possible’ within smart cities § vs. warnings of the acceleration of social inequality, exclusion and disempowerment from the automation of urban life § Ned to challenge both the uncritical claims of the developers and the critical theoretical interventions of scholars

foundational assumptions § Langdon Winner: technological affordances – what possibilities do technologies open up or limit? § Not technological determinism – not considering unavoidable / inevitable singular trajectories § So… I’m interested in the affordances emerging from the combination of ubisurv and big data in urban contexts

Smart What? §Smart Cities §Smart Roads §Smart Environment §Smart Water §Smart Metering §Smart Grid §Smart Shopping §Smart Logistics §Smart Agriculture §Smart Homes §Smart Health… (partial list from libelium. com)

technological trajectories § Bigger data + more intelligent analytics (c. f. Louise Amoore) § Distribution and networking: ‘to the cloud’ (Vincent Mosco) § Augmented Reality § Size matters: decreasing size, increasing capabilities § Mobility § Biomimetics: things are not what they seem § Infrastructurization and transformed environments

big data § Many overlapping meanings § Network and automated management of quantities of information out of which it would be impossible to generate meaning without their being together § Quantities of data that can only be stored at larger scales (e. g. cloud, data warehouses, server farms etc. ) § Multiple uses at all scales from personal health monitoring through urban projects like smart cities, to planetary climate and disease monitoring § Surveillance deeply imbricated in big data § Collection and storage of information § affordances that big data offers for social sorting of people and groups § Illusions of ‘total knowledge’ / accurate surveillance / truth

augmented reality § New term for ‘layering’ of virtual onto the material or ‘recombination’ § Practical selling point for ubicomp § Assumes connection of indvidual through handheld device (or more direct connection) to an information-rich environment § Also assumes our bodies are informated (part of the environment for others) § Information as diffuse and everywhere (c. f. cloud computing) § Empowering / enabling cities? § Combination of AR and Universal Design allows richer, extended sensory environments for those handicapped by current emphasis on the visual. . .

Matthew Buckland’s slick corporate AR world

tiny sensors • Workable sensors at smaller scales • Distributed, wireless, multifunctional • Smallest working sensors from Dust Networks, Hitachi • ‘Motes’ - Will be seen as ‘big’ in very short time • Already moved from 0. 2 mm 2 to 0. 025 mm 2 • Micro – Nano? Top: Early prototype ‘smart dust’ mote on US penny (UC Berkeley Smart Dust project)

mobile monitoring From the skies over the Gulf to the streets of Liverpool: UAVs (right – r/c helicopter camera military (PA); left Predator drone aircraft (USAF)

wearable computing Google Glass

“x-ray spex” • Body-scanners have spread rapidly • Terahertz wave scanning shown in theory to work in much smaller devices and output is ‘good enough for video’; • Portable T-wave scanners being tested by NYPD in 2013 (theory to practice in just 4 years)

biomimetics • Growth of RC and autonomous robot surveillance systems • Biomimetics = Robotic devices that mimic natural systems • Development largely funded by military research (US DARPA, Israel) • Snakes, birds, insects • Concept is to move to independent mobility • Even prototypes in use are difficult to tell from their natural model Top: Technion’s snake bot Below: Aero. Vironment’s Nano Hummingbird robot

hidden drone, swarming robot ‘Upward-falling payloads’, sea-launched UAVs (right, US Navy); Co-operating drones (left, GRASP Lab UPenn) • Robots can be anywhere, waiting • Can work together and learn

prehistory of smart cities §Information Society §Creating a ‘virtual city’: § Websites for cities § Online portals §Recombination: bring the virtual city into the material – cyber-cities, digital cities etc. : § Kiosks as material portals to the cyber-city § Local internet provision in libraries and schools § Online public transport timetables and live signage

smart cities §Three different, related uses of ‘smart city’: 1. From European spatial planning - rational and sustainable city 2. From major computing companies (predominantly IBM, Cisco, SAP, Siemens, Hitachi) - information management tools applied urban systems 3. Modernizing discourses, often related to nationalism (c. f. Putrajaya, Indian projects)

smart cities §Second use of the term relies on ‘ubiquitous city’: § § combination of ubiquitous computing and urban management characterized by pervasive wireless networks and distributed sensor platforms - ‘Internet of Things’ Monitoring flows from traffic to sewerage Providing information: real-time or in anticipation of risks §Claimed underlying purposes mainly generic social ‘goods’, e. g. Conviviality, environmental sustainability, innovation or… safety / security.

varieties of smart cities § Advanced whole-city projects like Rio de Janeiro’s Smart City project, directly sponsored by IBM § central control room bringing in data from multiple sources, § Mayor, Eduardo Paes claims he can manage the city from anywhere in the world § vs. smart city initiatives are at relatively early stage in Canada – no advanced project

varieties of smart cities § The levels and scale of smartness in these projects varies – often unimpressive in practice § But: increasingly ambitious proposals 1. Return of the ‘ideal city’ e. g. Masdar (UAE) 2. new Indian PM Modi’s call for 100 smart cities across India § Securing major corporate involvement is in itself viewed as a marker of success in the competition for status in the world city network

open platforms? § Smart Cities are not politcally neutral § Increasing interest in open platforms and open data § But also: 1 – Corporate walled gardens and brandscapes § But also 2 - increasing state control of public open access § Examples range from extending lawful access legislation through active web censorship to redesign of the net

standardizing smart cities § Various attempts to standardize smart cities § Rankings (e. g. Mercier) – mania for ranking global cities… § Prizes (annual Smart City Awards etc. ) § Branded standards: § IBM, Intel, Microsoft City. Next § ISO 37120: 2014 - Sustainable development of communities – indicators for city services and quality of life § City Protocol Society

ISO 37120 § Previous studies found multiple indices used – few in common § Leads to development of ISO standard § 46 core indicators (smart cities “shall”…) § 54 supporting indicators (smart cities “should”) § 3 rd party verification of data and audit process § Profile indicators (population, size, GDP, city type) provide a set of comparable interactions

infowar or cooperation? § connection or disjuncture between national security and corporate content creation vs. open source / open access movement? § Wikileaks / Snowden place transparency and accountability in same field as surveillance and control § Anonymous - active reassertion of anti-state and anti-corporate visions § Hacker and Maker spaces smart city hacking § Post-9/11 tendency to badge openness as as a threat § C 21 st - politics of information is / will be vital § Will corporations and states recognise the importance of participatory making?