Smart Cities Reaction Paper GVHSHA001

Smart urbanism refers to ways in which people, pipes, ducts, and data are closely connected
in city governance, everyday life, and processes of management (Odendaal 2021).

The ‘cut and paste’ urbanism “assumes replicability across places,” this application of
standardised solutions do not take note of the uniqueness of the context in which it is being
applied. Understanding smart cities from grassroots development helps empower
marginalised communities in reorganising their communities spatially for the effective
provision of utilities. There is a growing need to translate the smart urbanism initiative
making the city to engage the cognisance of localised places hence a contextualisation
approach (Odendaal 2021). The smart city drive is more on putting the city on the global
economy rather than impactful changes, this can be linked with Cinnamon (2023) ’s text
which asserts that major cities are aspiring to attain a smart city status, in Cape Town, smart
urbanism is driven by the ambition to compete with the other urban global elites. Influenced
by Northern cities, former Mayor Patricia de Lille led numerous smart city initiatives as she
wanted to compete with cities like New York in making Cape Town the ‘digital city in
Africa.’ Cinnamon (2023).

There is a strong belief that smart cities will save us; the temporalities of smart cities focus
more on the future, neglecting the changing present, and being left out hence the notion of
putting invisible faces at the forefront. The ephemeris of escaping the real city move away
from dealing with the messiness in urban areas and then decide to start afresh on a new piece
of land Cinnamon (2023). This results in a huge gap between the totalising narrative (an
authoritative unified perspective that does not give room for alternative viewpoints) and the
diverse lived experiences on the ground that challenge the discourse. By trying to escape
from reality, the gap between the theoretical policy promises, and the frustrations and
inconsistencies embedded in practice continues to widen. New technologies have led to
splintering urbanism where only the connected parts of the city are accessible and
discontinuities on the rest that are fragmented remain underserviced and inaccessible.
(Odendaal 2021).

How people use technology is linked to how they sustain their livelihoods, smart urbanism is
a continuous process of emergence and remaking (Odendaal 2021). Guma argues that mobile
technologies have had a profound effect on the social and economic fabric of Nairobi. From
the ubiquitous use of cell phones for everyday communication and the sharing of information
to the impact on business practices and the delivery of services, these innovations have
transformed the way people live and work in the city. The perpetual transitions in
infrastructure from being used as a kiosk, to a dumping site when the communal phones
market was infiltrated by smartphones to being reused again as mobile money stalls, both old
and new kiosks were serving the same purpose Guma (2020).

Odendaal (2021) and Guma (2020) highlight the limitations of smart city technologies in
solving urban challenges in the Global South due to the oversimplification of complex
socioeconomic circumstances. Instead, they advocate for context-specific approaches that
take into account local dynamics, human dimensions, and livelihoods. The notion of
transiency, continuity, and contingency in infrastructure, as posited by Guma (2020),
emphasizes their fluid and constantly changing nature, challenging the assumption of
infrastructure as a fixed entity. These ideas shift the focus away from idealized smart city
imaginaries and towards a more nuanced understanding of urban spaces.

Making the invisible visible challenges existing discourses of whose voice is heard, who
matters the most, and what exists. For instance, the campaign done by Ndifuna Ukwazi was
successful in personalising the urban poor’s daily experiences and they used it tomake
transformations in the inclusionary housing policy in Capetown. The MapKibera project in
Kenya used digital technologies, coupled with the participation of residents, to create maps
that made the informal area of Kibera visible on city maps. This promoted spatial literacy,
allowing residents to understand and navigate the physical spaces around them with greater
ease, fostering a deeper connection to the places they inhabit. The result was a more
inclusive, accessible, and cohesive urban space, challenging the exclusionary nature of
traditional mapping practices. Both examples “claim space and that which exists outside the
norm” and this means that they create a platform for the recognition of the marginalised
groups of a city (Odendaal 2021).

Odendaal 2021, advocates for provincialising smart city discourses to work on decentering
universal claims to imagine cities that value agency, diversity, and the well-being of all
residents. Assemblage delves into how human actors like activists, residents, and
policymakers, and nonhuman actors like urban infrastructure and digital technologies,
interact and co-constitute urban spaces on the right to the city hence the distribution of power
and resources within cities. An assemblage on learning and innovation asserts that urban
spaces are sites of continuous adaptation, experimentation, and learning, where new relations
and practices emerge over time.

There is a need for a systematic study of the contexts and histories of Global South cities'
influence on the current globally circulating notion of smart cities. A need to analyse the
ineffectiveness of the city’s data-driven ambitions compared to the historical data culture that
is shaped by local–national dynamics (Cinnamon 2023). The technology emphasising the
linkage between pace, people, knowledge, and politics is linked with Guma (2020)’s text
where M-PESA technology was introduced with the end user in mind. The state did not
intervene and the residents were not only consumers of the technology but experts Guma's
paper also delved into the issues and potential benefits of incorporating mobile technologies
into the urban infrastructure. Guma (2020) acknowledges the challenges associated with
integrating mobile technologies into urban infrastructures, such as digital divide, data privacy
issues, and regulatory hurdles, and how technologies can enhance urban services and improve
the quality of life for city residents. For instance, the mobile money structures which started
as kiosks, from a distance are not aesthetically pleasing but in reality, they carry a value on
which the livelihood of the community is dependent Guma (2020).

There is a bias of the data cultures that people do not take much into consideration, how
everything becomes quantified; the complexities of smart cities, and the lived experiences on
the ground. Data culture is the shaping of practices of the collection of data, use,
management, and sharing through the values and norms imputed to data in organizations, and
social groups, on the databased city. The data culture also speaks to what accounts for
knowledge. There is a great ambition to be data-driven but there are still barriers in effective
data production and management as well as digital documents. The city collects much data
but fails to work with the data. There have been difficulties in further developing and
benefiting from the technology and data-driven approaches, smart urbanism has proved to be
less applicable in contexts with resource constraints Cinnamon (2023).

The smart technologies require that the data is put into use, knowledge production which
contributes to decision-making. However, in South Africa, it has been proven that data is
collected for the sake of collection rather than for analysis to inform decision-making. There
is a lack of capacity to effectively analyse the data and this leads to state-produced
knowledge voids and absences Cinnamon (2023). There has been a growing need to collect,
analyse, and work on the data produced in the informal settlement but the state has not been
supporting these bottom-up approaches hence the culture of secrecy still remains. The is also
a need to ensure that African cities can benefit from data-driven initiatives Cinnamon (2023).
The Smart ID that replicates the apartheid-era dompas is now being used for good; for voting
privileges and social services provision to the registered citizens. Some rising concerns are on
how their biometrics information can be used for some other oppressive things as the
Apartheid had manipulated the system to enforce their ruling Cinnamon (2023).

On the openness city, secrecy has sponsored a disconnect between the open data concept and
the resistance there is in the sharing information at different levels of government for instance
the “Digital City Strategy which is the city’s document has been very difficult to access
which it is supposed to be accessed by everyone Cinnamon (2023). The paper raises
important questions about equality and accessibility in the digital era. While mobile
technologies hold the promise of increased connectivity and improved service delivery, they
also highlight the disparity in digital literacy, affordability, and infrastructure deployment,
highlighting the need for more inclusive approaches to the adoption of new technologies and
bridging the digital divide in urban settings. The text on mobile payment systems like M-
PESA shows the adaptive role of mobile technologies in solving urban challenges. The
innovation managed to fill in the gaps in financial infrastructure, becoming a lifeline for the
Nairobi residents who did not have direct access to the conventional banking systems Guma
(2020).

References
Guma. P.K (2020). Incompleteness of urban infrastructures in transition: Scenarios from the
mobile age in Nairobi. Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University,
Netherlands
Odendaal. N. (2021). Everyday urbanisms and the importance of place: Exploring the
elements of the emancipatory smart city. University of Cape Town, South Africa
Cinnamon. J. (2023). On data cultures and the prehistories of smart urbanism in “Africa’s
Digital City”. Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies, University of British
Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, Canada