In recent years, the Smart City has become a very popular concept amongst policymakers and urban planners. However, at the same time as new urban Smart interventions are being designed and applied, insufficient attention has been paid to how these strategies are inserted into the wider political economy and, in particular, the political ecology of urban transformation. Therefore, in this presentation the authors (Hug March and Ramon Ribera-Fumaz) critically explore the implementation of the Smart City, tracing how the “environment” and environmental concerns have become an organising principle in Barcelona’s Smart City strategy. Through an urban political ecology prism they aim to critically reflect upon the contradictions of the currently existing Smart City in Barcelona and how Smart discourses and practices might be intentionally or unintentionally mobilised in ways that serve to depoliticise urban redevelopment and environmental management. The presentation stresses the need to repoliticize the debates on the Smart City and put citizens back at the centre of the urban debate.

1. Smart Contradictions
The Politics of Making Barcelona a Self-sufficient City
Hug March & Ramon Ribera-Fumaz
Urban Transformation Research Group
Internet Interdisciplinary Institute
Based on: March, H ; Ribera-Fumaz, R, (2014): Smart Contradictions: The Politics of Making Barcelona a Self-sufficient
City. European Urban and Regional Studies, doi: 10.1177/0969776414554488
1
Smart Contradictions

2. Smart City
2

3. When investments in human and social capital and traditional (transport)
and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure fuel sustainable
economic development and a high quality of life, with a wise
management of natural resources, through participatory governance
(Caragliu et al., 2009: 50)
Smart City
3

4. 4
When investments in human and social capital and traditional (transport)
and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure fuel sustainable
economic development and a high quality of life, with a wise
management of natural resources, through participatory governance
(Caragliu et al., 2009: 50)
...Urban flavour of the month
Smart City

5. 5
Smart Contradictions
Smart City

6. Smart Contradictions
So...
6

7. Smart Contradictions
Is the smart city a radical shift? Or old wine in new bottles?
Is empowering citizens? Or is a disciplinary technology?
...
So...
7

8. Smart Contradictions
Is the smart city a radical shift? Or old wine in new bottles?
Is empowering citizens? Or is a disciplinary technology?
...
… the goal is to… Critically explore the central role
of ‘the environment’ in
articulating Smart City policies
and its insertion in a wider
political economy and ecology of
urban transformation and urban
services provision to answer the
previous questions
So...
8

9. 9
Smart Contradictions
Is the smart city a radical shift? Or old wine in new bottles?
Is empowering citizens? Or is a disciplinary technology?
...
… the goal is to… Critically explore the central role
of ‘the environment’ in
articulating Smart City policies
and its insertion in a wider
political economy and ecology of
urban transformation and urban
services provision to answer the
previous questions
… how… Urban political
ecology
So...

10. 10
Smart Contradictions
Is the smart city a radical shift? Or old wine in new bottles?
Is empowering citizens? Or is a disciplinary technology?
...
… the goal is to… Critically explore the central role
of ‘the environment’ in
articulating Smart City policies
and its insertion in a wider
political economy and ecology of
urban transformation and urban
services provision to answer the
previous questions
… where…
So...
… how… Urban political
ecology

11. Smart Contradictions
Barcelona
11

12. Smart Contradictions
Barcelona Self-sufficient City
12

13. Smart Contradictions
Barcelona Self-sufficient City
13
Barcelona Growth Centre

14. Smart Contradictions
Barcelona Self-sufficient City
14
Self-sufficient superblocks

15. Smart Contradictions
Barcelona Self-sufficient City
15
Fablabs/Civic Centres

16. Smart Contradictions
Barcelona Self-sufficient City
16
22@ Heat & Cold Network

17. Smart Contradictions
Barcelona
smart sustainability fix
17

18. Smart Contradictions
Contradictions
18

19. Smart Contradictions
Contradictions
A new ontology of
how cities should
organise and manage
Post-political city
Citizen’s participation
and bottom-up
Top-down strategy
Discursively it puts citizens in
the middle: participation,
makers, empowering….
“more control over their own
life”
Yet, citizens are absent or ill
defined in its implementation
Are we talking about users,
consumers, producers,
citizens…?
19

20. Smart Contradictions
Contradictions
A new ontology of
how cities should
organise and manage
Post-political city
Citizen’s participation
and bottom-up
Top-down strategy Whose city?
20
Discursively it puts citizens in
the middle: participation,
makers, empowering….
“more control over their own
life”
Yet, citizens are absent or ill
defined in its implementation
Are we talking about users,
consumers, producers,
citizens…?

21. Smart Contradictions
Contradictions
The Smart/Self-sufficient city
paradigm is more than the
next generation of managing
socio-environmental flows
though another layer of ICT
infrastructure over the modern
urbanism form.
Yet, by transforming socio-
environmental problems
into essentially engineering
problems – to be solved
using empirically generated
quantitative data – it de-
politises the making of
urban life.
Technology is not neutral!
Social problems are social,
not technological
A new ontology of
how cities should
organise and manage
Post-political city
Citizen’s participation
and bottom-up
Top-down strategy
New ontology of how
cities should organise
and be managed
Post-political city
Whose city?
21

22. Smart Contradictions
Contradictions
A new ontology of
how cities should
organise and manage
Post-political city
Citizen’s participation
and bottom-up
Top-down strategy
Post-political city
Whose city?
Urgent need to
Repoliticise the City
22
New ontology of how
cities should organise
and be managed
The Smart/Self-sufficient city
paradigm is more than the
next generation of managing
socio-environmental flows
though another layer of ICT
infrastructure over the modern
urbanism form.
Yet, by transforming socio-
environmental problems
into essentially engineering
problems – to be solved
using empirically generated
quantitative data – it de-
politises the making of
urban life.
Technology is not neutral!
Social problems are social,
not technological

23. Smart Contradictions
Contradictions
A new ontology of
how cities should
organise and manage
Post-political city
Citizen’s participation
and bottom-up
Top-down strategy
Post-political city
Whose city?
Urgent need to
Repoliticise the City
Going beyond (false)
dualisms over nature and
society and re-imagining
the city through knowledge
based urbanism
Yet, in the context of crisis,
austerity politics and urban
dynamics lead by land rents,
is being Smart so important?
(see Charnock, Purcell,
Ribera-Fumaz 2014)
Bringing knowledge
and nature at the core
of urban life
City of (Self-sufficient)
rents
23
New ontology of how
cities should organise
and be managed

24. Smart Contradictions
Contradictions
A new ontology of
how cities should
organise and manage
Post-political city
Citizen’s participation
and bottom-up
Top-down strategy
Post-political city
Whose city?
Urgent need to
Repoliticise the City
Importance of “not so
smart” urban
infrastructure
Bringing knowledge
and nature at the core
of urban life
City of (Self-sufficient)
rents
24
New ontology of how
cities should organise
and be managed
Going beyond (false)
dualisms over nature and
society and re-imagining
the city through knowledge
based urbanism
Yet, in the context of crisis,
austerity politics and urban
dynamics lead by land rents,
is being Smart so important?
(see Charnock, Purcell,
Ribera-Fumaz 2014)

25. Smart Contradictions
Contradictions
Universal solutions A-geographical
Smart solutions as transfe-
rable and scalable every-
where (NY to Mumbai,
Antarctica, the Jungle!)
Yet, are pilots
scalable/transferable beyond
their context? How SCs are
produced?
A new ontology of
how cities should
organise and manage
Post-political city
Citizen’s participation
and bottom-up
Top-down strategy
Post-political city
Whose city?
Urgent need to
Repoliticise the City
Importance of “not so
smart” urban
infrastructure
Bringing knowledge
and nature at the core
of urban life
City of (Self-sufficient)
rents
25
New ontology of how
cities should organise
and be managed

26. Smart Contradictions
Contradictions
A new ontology of
how cities should
organise and manage
Post-political city
Citizen’s participation
and bottom-up
Top-down strategy
Post-political city
Whose city?
Urgent need to
Repoliticise the City
Importance of “not so
smart” urban
infrastructure
Bringing knowledge
and nature at the core
of urban life
City of (Self-sufficient)
rents
Geographies and
Geometries of Power
and SC production
26
Universal solutions A-geographical
New ontology of how
cities should organise
and be managed
Yet, are pilots
scalable/transferable beyond
their context? How SCs are
produced?
Smart solutions as transfe-
rable and scalable every-
where (NY to Mumbai,
Antarctica, the Jungle!)

27. Smart Contradictions
Conclusions
27

28. Smart Contradictions
Conclusions
28
Whose city?
Urgent need to
Repoliticise the City
Importance of “not so
smart” urban
infrastructure
Geographies and
Geometries of Power
and SC production

29. Smart Contradictions
Conclusions
29
Whose city?
Urgent need to
Repoliticise the City
Importance of “not so
smart” urban
infrastructure
Geographies and
Geometries of Power
and SC production
How can we manage those contradictions?
Can we think in forms of democratic control over
the production of knowledge and on managing
and organizing urban (technological)
infrastructure for the many and not the few?

30. Smart Contradictions
Conclusions
30
How can we manage those contradictions?
Can we think in forms of democratic control over
the production of knowledge and on managing
and organizing urban (technological)
infrastructure for the many and not the few?
e.g. Gorostiza S., March H., & Sauri D. (In
press). Urban Ecology Under Fire
Whose city?
Urgent need to
Repoliticise the City
Importance of “not so
smart” urban
infrastructure
Geographies and
Geometries of Power
and SC production