ABSTRACT
Critical research in Urban Geography and Planning has started to show the wide gap between the premises on which the smart technologies deployment is based and the reality of its implementation. Different urban governance contexts result in a variety of patterns for citizen involvement in ‘smart city’ initiatives. Cities are not passive receivers of conditions dictated by markets and large companies; under certain circumstances, they can resist market forces and, within limits, actively shape their economic choice. Recent critical research has started showing that the ‘smart city’ phenomenon is geographically diverse. Some cities around the world have started challenging current mainstream ideas of urban growth and entrepreneurial urbanism and embracing ‘alternative’ visions of technology deployed through their own urban fabric. The digital platform economy is said to have the potential of not only realising smart mobility and accommodation in modern cities, but also of radically disrupting the nature of work and the structure of the economy.
