ABSTRACT
This chapter explores whether the surge of private sector interest has impacted on smart city objectives in Cape Town. It examines the evolution of the smart city discourse in South Africa by focusing on Cape Town. Reference was made to the city's Climate Smart Cape Town programme, mainly focused on an online resource and discussion space on climate change. Following an overview of the City of Cape Town's information and communication technologies (ICT) strategy, different categories of examples were briefly discussed: public-led smart city strategies, innovations in other sectors and an example of a bottom-up initiative that engages city policy and operations. The notion of the smart city is enjoying resurgence since the early explorations of digital cities. As a concept notion of smart city pops up in literature on cities generally. The e-governance work was quite dominant in the 1990s and recent work suggests a concern with resultant increased surveillance and the impact that has on urbanism.
