Schremmer, Christof and Collon, Heidi and Kintisch, Max and Kirchmayr-Novak, Stephanie and Mollay, Ursula and Saringer-Bory, Barbara (2014) TRANSFORM – Governing the Smart City by Projects. REAL CORP 2014 – PLAN IT SMART! Clever Solutions for Smart Cities. Proceedings of 19th International Conference on Urban Planning, Regional Development and Information Society. pp. 729-738.
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Text (TRANSFORM – Governing the Smart City by Projects)
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Abstract
With the recent ascendance of a sociology of public policy instruments (Le Gales & Lascoumes 2007), particular interest has been devoted towards understanding the emergence of the project as broadly indicative of wider transformations in strategic urban policy making (Pinson 2007, 2009, Beal 2010). Many Smart Cities are governed by research projects, and these are practically marked by an inherent tension. On one hand, the Smart City research project has the purpose of shaping consensus around acceptable “smart” urban futures, instituting new pluralist political spaces, in which scientific targets are always practically reversible if they do not fit consensus. On the other, the Smart city research project aims to scientifically evaluate what “right” choices have to be made to lead the city towards effective Smart City development in line with supranational targets and climate wisdoms. How can the Smart City research project shape consensus among a multiplicity of institutions, actors and groups while not compromising the scientific validity of the set targets and strategies? Drawing on the experiences of the project TRANSFORM in monitoring and shaping the transition strategies of six European cities, the aim of this paper is to elucidate some of the logics of strategic urban policy processes in their peculiar pathways towards the Smart City. In the course of the paper we would like to show how some of the tensions inherent in the role of Smart city research projects are practically addressed in the local framework of the project TRANSFORM and give a first tentative evaluation whether this has been successful so far. In the context of stagnant growth prospects and increased territorial competition, the urban project has become a primary vehicle for the promotion of local development. Newly build urban districts, such as Hamburg Hafencity or Aspern Seestadt in Vienna, mega events like the London Olympics, large scale revamps of urban public spaces such as the pedestrianization of Times Square, or the proliferation of cultural venues from the London Megadome to the old butcheries of Casablanca are prominent examples for the spread of the project form in urban policy making. Yet, while the urban project has become a preferred instrument of contemporary urban policy, it cannot be conceived of as a mere effect of the strategies it is embedded in but should be seen as a marker of the very advent of a project-based polis (Boltansky 1999) in which urban governance assumes the logic of the project itself. As has been argued elsewhere((Pinson 2005;2006; Brake 2000) it is a form of metropolitan governance whose primary purpose it is to shape consenus to scientificically elaborated urban development goals by substantively linking urban strategy and its implementation through the social mobilization of different actor constellations, thereby flexibly adjusting the strategic environment to changing external and internal circumstances, and monitoring the actions of local actors and their interests where they are generally segregated. Smart Cities are governed by research projects, and these are marked by an inherent tension. On one hand, the Smart City research project has the purpose of shaping consensus around an acceptable “smart” urban future instituting new pluralist political spaces, in which scientific targets are always practically reversible if they do not fit consensus. On the other, the Smart city research project aims to scientifically evaluate what “right” choices have to be made to lead the city towards effective Smart City development in line with supranational targets and climate wisdoms. How can the Smart City research project shape consensus among a multiplicity of institutions, actors and groups while not compromising the scientific validity of the set targets and strategies? Drawing on the experiences of the project TRANSFORM in monitoring and shaping the low-carbon transfromation strategies of six European cities, the aim of this paper is to elucidate some of the logics of strategic urban policy processes in their peculiar pathways towards the Smart City. Drawing on the experiences from the TRANSFORM cities in general and particularly from Vienna in formulating and experimenting their Smart City strategy, we would like to show how some of the tensions inherent in the role of Smart city research projects are practically addressed in the framework of the project TRANSFORM. In the first part we will provide a general theoretical background to the sociological analysis of the urban project, with particular focus on the challenges on the governance of local climate affairs. In the second part, we shall illustrate this by looking at the TRANSFORM project, first form a European perspective, then from the viewpoint of Vienna.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | European Cities , Governance, Project, Smart City, project TRANSFORM |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory J Political Science > JS Local government Municipal government Q Science > Q Science (General) |
| Depositing User: | REAL CORP Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Jul 2016 09:04 |
| Last Modified: | 26 Jul 2016 09:04 |
| URI: | http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/235 |
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