Smart City Gnosys

Smart city article details

Title	Smart Cities By Design? Interrogating Design Thinking For Citizen Participation
ID_Doc	49524
Authors	Schliwa G.
Year	2019
Published	The Right to the Smart City
DOI	http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78769-139-120191011
Abstract	Citizen participation in urban governance has established itself as a paradigm, promising greater democracy, empowerment, and more cost-effective public service delivery against the backdrop of increased urban conflicts. The dominant focus on the "citizen" or even "smart citizen" in the context of smart cities and urban innovation is however a relatively recent phenomenon. A growing number of initiatives seek to revamp the smart city as a human smart city. Therein, design thinking and human-centered design have become the buzzwords of choice to describe "putting people first" approaches that promise to develop solutions tailored to citizens' needs. What was previously known as user-centered design in the context of information and communication technology (ICT) product and service development now proliferates the urban through innovation labs or civic hackathons. But what are the implications of using design thinking in a smart city context? And moreover, how to unpack human-centered design and design thinking within urban scholarship? This chapter contextualizes the phenomenon of design thinking in cities and renders implicit design thinking processes more explicit. Drawing upon ongoing research in Manchester and Amsterdam since 2014, my work-in-progress suggests that governing through design thinking results in a designing of the social rather than for the social. This trend requires historically informed political analysis and alternative ways to govern if the "right to the smart city" is not to become yet another iteration of shape-shifting neoliberal strategies.
Author Keywords	Citizen participation; Design thinking; Governance; Smart cities; Urban co-design; Urban innovation

Similar Articles

Id	Similarity	Authors	Title	Published
29644	0.922	Maqousi A.; Basu K.; Almomani A.; Alkasassbeh M.	Human-Centered Design For Smart Cities: Integrating Social Aspects In Planning And Policy	Revolutionizing Urban Development and Governance With Emerging Technologies (2025)
20772	0.92	Ahmadzai P.	Divergent And Convergent Thinking Processes In Smart Cities: A Systematic Review Of Human-Centered Design Practices	Cities, 159 (2025)
44533	0.909	Förster N.; Schubert G.; Petzold F.	Rebugging The Smart City Design Explorations Of Digital Urban Infrastructure	Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (2022)
13874	0.899	Bradshaw, R; Kitchin, R	Charting The Design And Implementation Of The Smart City: The Case Of Citizen-Centric Bikeshare In Hamilton, Ontario	URBAN GEOGRAPHY, 43, 4 (2022)
14080	0.898	Voelz A.; Muck C.; Amlashi D.M.; Karagiannis D.	Citizen-Centric Design Of Consumable Services For Smart Cities	Digital Government: Research and Practice, 4, 3 (2023)
14057	0.897	Simonofski A.; Asensio E.S.; Wautelet Y.	Citizen Participation In The Design Of Smart Cities: Methods And Management Framework	Smart Cities: Issues and Challenges Mapping Political, Social and Economic Risks and Threats (2019)
52110	0.894	Kolodii, NA; Ivanova, VS; Chernova, DA	Sociocentrism Versus Technocentrism In Smart City Research	VESTNIK TOMSKOGO GOSUDARSTVENNOGO UNIVERSITETA-FILOSOFIYA-SOTSIOLOGIYA-POLITOLOGIYA-TOMSK STATE UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY SOCIOLOGY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, 80 (2024)
28179	0.892	Meijer, A; Bolívar, MPR	Governing The Smart City: A Review Of The Literature On Smart Urban Governance	INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES, 82, 2 (2016)
14092	0.891	Cardullo P.	Citizens In The 'Smart City': Participation, Co-Production, Governance	Citizens in the 'Smart City': Participation, Co-Production, Governance (2020)
46562	0.891	Goodwin S.C.	Revisiting Smartness In The Smart City	The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology (2020)