ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews a broad range of key theoretical debates and positions to set out the framework with which to understand the factors that shape digital cities. The historical context and background to the rise of digital and smart city movement and agenda aimed to show how these were underpinned by perception of information and communication technology (ICT) being a radical game-changer. The chapter explores these techno-centric approaches and seek to further understand how they are generated and implications for cities and city design. It aims to present a grounded and fairly comprehensive introduction to see how technology can shape cities. The chapter seeks to set out the pros and cons of the different views, but the underlying argument make that a socially constructed approach to digital and smart cities is more valuable than techno-centric one. The theme of urban overview provides powerful visions of ultimate control-freak civic management, where administrators and 'experts' have urban functioning literally at their fingertips.
