ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the incarnation of the smart city ideal in the context of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), focusing in particular on a new high-tech urban project: Masdar City. Based on field research over a three-year period, it explains the rationale behind the development of Masdar City in relation to the politico-economic development of Abu Dhabi. The chapter seeks to illuminate one of the most controversial aspects of smart city developments: the difference between the label and the materiality of the project; or, in other words, between what the project has been called and what has actually been implemented. Given that the practice of urban eco-modernisation requires the constant production of new technologies, Masdar City needs to extract a wide range of resources to build its smart devices, and to use large quantities of oil and gas to generate the energy necessary to power the processes of production and distribution.
