ABSTRACT
The chapter explores how information technology is transforming the contribution that cities make to wellbeing. Technology has the potential to add value to the purpose and meaning of cities and to enrich citizens’ health and wellbeing. This potential is threatened by the technocratic and bureaucratic aspects of ‘smart city’ concepts and their forms of implementation. An alternative view of wellbeing and place in relation to technology is proposed, challenging the utilitarian, efficiency-driven model of smart cities. Conventional smart city models have perpetuated Modernist functionalist view of the city. The history of ideas of the cyborg city in the computer age indicates two distinct strands of smart city thinking: one that uses technology to manage the city and its infrastructure, and another that facilitates citizens’ access to city services and their collective input. By re-spatialising urban typologies and patterns of use, technology has the potential to enrich wellbeing in the city, but the success of its impacts will depend on a new form of civics that empowers citizen engagement in programming and design.
