Hill makes an open call to harvest inspiration for a ‘cooperative urban governance model’ from social media and their dynamic, as they enable citizens, mostly through mobile technologies, to demand and support urban change. However, all the examples he provides, such as the Arab spring (or to put it into context, the Women marches of a few weeks ago), were currents against the main flow of governance. Given the concerns about the privacy of our data portraits on social media platforms, the pressing question of privacy returns. Would a decision-making model, modelled after social media and mutually constituted by lawmakers and citizens alike, protect the identity of the latter? Would it be possible to imagine democracy without anonymity in the contemporary setting?
Townsend is emphasizing on the necessity to infuse a certain threshold of indeterminacy in the concept of the smart city (pp.15). Spontaneity and randomness are basic ingredients of city life, but as Haque puts it (pp.141), city managers and software companies always strive for more control and regulation. The question is, why would they give away power to the community if there is no monetary or political profit in for them?
Townsend describes how “smartness” emerges locally, only to be later considered a case study of a global interest for localities elsewhere (pp.11). He also briefly mentions the apparent danger of smart cities ending up amplifying social inequality (pp.12) instead of tackling it. Today, two of the most pressing urban problems worldwide are unemployment and homelessness. Why haven’t we seen as many smart attempts that deal with social issues?