Are ‘Smart Cities’ Smart?
The authors of these articles here and here believe that smart cities can improve human life. On this view, smart cities are welfare goods; they contribute to human flourishing.
Yet I hear a Dostoyevskian voice warning that the smart city is a dehumanizing “Crystal Palace” in which human activity is corralled and controlled, and human excellence and autonomy are thereby hamstrung. (For more on Dostoyevsky’s criticism of the “Crystal Palace,” see Notes from Underground, New York: Bantam Dell, 2005, 23-24)
According to this critical view, on balance, smart cities don’t contribute to human flourishing. They prevent it. The uncritical celebration of smart cities is dangerously naive.
What do you think?