ABSTRACT
Digital technologies such as smart sensors, Internet of Things (IoT), and data analytics are increasingly implicated in the design of cities, particularly following significant academic and policy attention on creating ‘smart’ cities. These smart technologies have attracted significant critique and have led to calls for more inclusive and people-centred approaches to shape our cities in collaboration with citizens – and particularly with politically marginalised groups. We respond to this call by reporting insights from a pilot engagement with children, a group often neglected by city planners and designers. The engagement centred on the use of handheld environmental sensing tools by 8- and 9-year-old children in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, aiming to gather evidence for urban change and generate placemaking ideas for improving their neighbourhood. Our analysis reveals how the tools supported creative responses to urban issues and revealed new possibilities for their use; how contrasting embodied and technical sensing produced critical engagements with technologies; and how data production generated ambivalences and tensions. Drawing from our insights, we illustrate the value of engaging children with smart technologies in data-driven city-making processes and discuss implications for realising inclusive, people-centred approaches to shaping smart cities that place marginalised groups at their heart.
