Who invented the expression Smart City?

A philosopher? A progressive mayor? A famous urbanist? No. A private and for-profit American company: IBM. [1]

The idea of the Smart City is a generic, commercial and fashionable idea that says that a set of rather undefined "technologies" will improve cities for everybody.

There's plenty that is wrong and troubling.

First, private companies are offering cities "solutions" that allow them to hoard data that belongs to the citizens, who are considered mere objects of a transaction. [2]

Second, the solutions being offered are based on the false and worrisome idea that data is always correct, and that our interpretation of data is always right and univocal.

Lastly, the idea that we can reach the best possible solution for everybody is not only technocratic, but false. A city is far tool large and complicated an entity to be governed by an algorithm. Cities need to accept politics as the art of balancing opposing interests.

Any time we deny the importance of politics, that's an authoritarian political act.