ABSTRACT
This chapter probes the relationship between “smart” and “imaginary”. Several scholars have applied the concept of the urban imaginary to smart mediations of urban spaces. But what emerges from many discussions of smart cities is a sense that the role of the imagination in relation to smart is highly problematic. Smart cities, it seems, are never imagined adequately. Smart imaginaries are too limited, or too absurd. People in smart cities are either totally unimaginative or their imagination is out of control. The chapter explores this dichotomous analysis and considers some of its implications.
