In part two of this four-part series on cities and technology, we turned our attention to smart cities. This concept gained some traction over the last decade as a technocratic solution to urban problems. Through the use of open data, widespread surveillance systems, and various digital data-generating tools, the smart city promised an apolitical suite of practices that could improve and optimize city governance and life. But as we learned in Part One, nothing about technology is politically neutral. We speak with four different scholars on their work in the smart cities arena and how it intersects with postcolonial critique, economic development, and the politics of open data.

In this first installment of a four-part series, we spoke with six scholars about how they think about technology in relation to the city and the urban. We drill into the etymology and anthropological implications of how technology really operates in our daily lives, and preview some of our discussions in the series.