ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the debate forward going to the roots of the ‘smart city’ dream-world by way of discussing the current changing morphology of the Internet provision between technological ideals of low latency and hyper speed and the libertarian ethos through which the Internet has been imagined thus far. Pioneering geography, sociology, and media studies, and more recent cultural studies research provide an excellent entry point in the debate. Both private and communitarian actors often gloss over the fact that the Internet as infrastructure is a form of ‘public value’ embedded in a longer-term strategy of technological and infrastructural innovation. Cities and communities alike are already paying for the ‘scarcity’ through which the Internet and its related data infrastructure are delivered aided by the market’s invisible hand: with higher rates and artificial caps, poor rights, ethics and governance records, and the splintering of the service.
