In the forthcoming instalment of the Technological Forecasting and Social Change journal, the article 'Citizen repertoires of smart urban safety' is published. This article, written by Centre for BOLD Cities affiliates Vivien Butot, Petra Saskia Bayerl, Gabriele Jacobs and Freek de Haan, provides empirical research about the perspectives of citizens of Rotterdam on the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of ‘smart urban safety’, which advocates advanced uses of digital technologies and data for urban safety management.
While smart cities affect many dimensions of city management, Butot and his co-authors argue in this article, applications to safety management belong to the most controversial, revealing important tensions between disparate perspectives on technology and society in the context of urban living environments.
Nevertheless, despite their influence, the concepts of smart cities and smart urban safety are largely unknown to the public. In the article, the authors explain how, to gain insights into citizens’ perspectives, they employed so-called "smart urban safety vignettes" to which participants are invited to respond. Using discourse analytical techniques, citizens' interpretations of safety in the smart city are described. The article concludes by arguing how these findings complement, but also show limitations to traditional technology acceptance models that are as of yet dominant in research of smart urban safety specifically, and smart cities more generally.
The full article is available via the Technological Forecasting & Social Change website (open access) or via the link below.