{"id":53945,"date":"2018-11-01T12:10:58","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T11:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiig.de\/?p=53945"},"modified":"2023-03-28T17:11:04","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T15:11:04","slug":"the-politics-behind-the-smart-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiig.de\/en\/the-politics-behind-the-smart-city\/","title":{"rendered":"The politics behind the Smart City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Modern cities depend largely on invisible infrastructures. The much-hyped \u2018Smart Cities\u2019 promise to digitise the urban \u2013 but what happens when they fail? How do we make sure that cities in the digital society remain public spaces? How can they be designed to foster the public good and not just commercial interests? On 24 September, Stephen Graham<\/strong> continued the lecture series Making Sense of the Digital Society<\/a>. In this article,\u00a0Marc Pirogan<\/strong> takes a look on Graham’s lecture on \u2018The politics of urban digital infrastructures\u2019<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

To begin his lecture, Graham emphasised that infrastructure helps to transform nature into culture. It brings resources from the hinterlands to the cities and helps to relocate the output and waste that is being produced in cities. The webs of infrastructure of food, logistics, energy, waste, information and so on are often invisible, but without them life would break down immediately.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure is something that is often spoken about, but is rarely defined. Building on Susan Leigh Star, Graham listed several characteristics of infrastructure that help to gain a better understanding what it entails. Infrastructure offers spatial and temporal reach, thereby compressing categories like space and time. People have to learn to use it and it is also linked to conventions of practice, as culture and social norms play an important role. Furthermore, infrastructure embodies standards, which becomes visible, for instance, in different national standards for electricity plugs. It is also always incorporated in the world around us and usually built in modular increments.<\/p>\n

It is often forgotten that infrastructure is embedded in other aspects of life and facilitates them. Infrastructure is transparent in the sense that you don\u2019t need to understand all the complex processes in order to use it. Therefore, scientists often speak of the black-boxing of technology. Another important aspect of infrastructure is that it tends to be only visible when it breaks down. For instance, a fire in a railway tunnel in Baltimore in 2001 that affected fiber cables caused a lack of e-mail access in many African countries. This materiality is something that is often forgotten.<\/p>\n

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