ABSTRACT
This chapter explores to what extent smart city labelling can be understood as a new variation of the ‘entrepreneurial city’, and counters this with speculation on what would be needed to make smart cities more inclusive and progressive. In the context of urban development strategies, smart city agendas have been shown to mask many of the underlying assumptions and contradictions hidden within this process, and as Hollands points out: the characterization of these changes through the use of the term smart cities can create certain assumptions about this transformation, as well as play down some of the underlying urban issues and problems inherent in the labelling process itself. The first is a recognition of human capital and a shift from smart cities to smart communities, where people’s existing knowledge and skills are put centrally in smart city developments. The second is the use of Information Technology (IT) to transform urban governance into a much more participatory and bottom-up process.
