At Bang the Table, Mark Dean takes a look at recent academic literature that questions citizens’ rights in the hyper-connected city. Digitisation of the city, Dean states, is heralded as bottom-up empowerment of its citizens. But just who defines citizenship as digital technology infiltrates everything from personalised experience to the unimagined potential of networked urban space?
Although struggle may define the urban experience of the future as it has before and in some ways continues to do, there are ways to approach smart city development that ensure a right to the city in the digital age.