Future-proofed - The Speculative Life of Smart Cities

Efficient, inclusive, sustainable: these are only some of the concepts through which smart cities have been marketed globally, over the past fifteen years at least. But what has really driven smart city projects, governance, and economies? This book argues it is speculation: not merely finance, but a much broader technopolitical force seeking to calculate and shape the future. Smart cities have been testbeds for new technological products, governed through preemptive analytics, and fuelled by high-risk financial investments. Drawing on case studies from Kolkata and Cape Town, this book illustrates how smart city technologies speculate on the future to govern and monetise the present. Today, smart cities might have lost some of their hype already, but their legacies are here to stay, and their ethical and political implications appear more critical  than ever. This book offers insights into the speculative forces that undergird urban smartness , and into their implications on everyday life, spatial justice, and citizens rights.

List of contents

1. Introduction.- 2. Speculative Urbanism: Transforming The Present Through The Future.- 3. Testbed Cities: Experiments, Prototypes, Trials.- 4. Futures And Failures: How Speculative Algorithms (Try To) Run The City.- 5. From Land To Data: Money In The Smart City.- 6. Beyond The Smart City: Speculating Otherwise.

About the author

Ilia Antenucci researches urban transformations and digital infrastructures at the intersection of political and economic geography, STS, and political theory. She is Assistant Professor of Economic and Political Geography at Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) of L’Aquila, Italy.

Product details

• Authors: Ilia Antenucci
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English, German
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 09.05.2025
• EAN: 9783031864285
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3186428-5
• No. of pages: 171
• Illustrations: XII, 171 p. 10 illus., 9 illus. in color.
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Urban and regional sociology; Gesellschaft und Kultur, allgemein, Städte, Stadtgemeinden, Big Data, Kommunal-, Regional- Landes und Lokalregierung, Algorithms, Humangeographie, Urban Planning, Cape Town, auseinandersetzen, Urban Governance, Urban Sociology, Human Geography, Science and Technology Studies, Smart Cities, Urban policy, Speculation, New Town Kolkata