ABSTRACT
Social imaginaries are fundamental in structuring our experiences, shaping our realities, and making our futures, as much as they are crucial in disabling alternative experiences. Today, few urban imaginaries are as popular as the smart city. Aiming at ‘repoliticizing’ the smart city debate, we argue that while data-driven technologies and algorithms have become the dominant drivers in the making of the smart cities, they are essentially fed by three types of social imaginaries: an economic, democratic, and security imaginary. The argument made in the chapter is that the three imaginaries of the smart city vision are embedded in a neoliberal ethos of market-led and technocratic solutions to city governance and development. As a consequence, neoliberal criteria are extended into urban spheres which are not economic and the political and social sphere of the smart city become redefined as an economic domain. This neoliberal ethos favours corporate interests and is driven primarily by commercial gain, while preventing the production of alternative imaginaries of urban space.
