VPRO Tegenlicht, a Dutch informational platform that discusses societal issues, published an online article where Centre for BOLD Cities' strategic director Jiska Engelbert discusses the smartification of cities.
The full article (in Dutch) is available on the VPRO Tegenlicht website.
"Smart technologies are not neutral," says smart city researcher dr. Jiska Engelbert in this Dutch article published on VPRO Tegenlicht. 'Technological processes make the city more efficient and cheaper, but also reduces people, spaces and objects in the city to data points. Data that does not just exist, but is produced. Technology is nice and useful,' says Engelbert, 'but we need to be more aware that it puts a filter over a city: an idea of what the city is for, and for whom.'
Who shapes the technology and what it measures is a political choice. That selection of what is measures now takes place at the municipality, companies and smart city panels. The danger of focusing on 'smartness' is that you overlook the real issues in the city, from the perception of its inhabitants.