Metropolitics

Ride-Hailing Away from Democracy: Building Uber's Political Playbook in Washington, DC

Lauren Ames Fischer — 2026-05-12T05:00:00Z

In the past decade, platforms such as Uber and Lyft have changed how people navigate urban space. Disputing DC illuminates Uber's efforts to influence how we navigate democratic space by reforming the contours of city power to serve the needs of smart cities and the gig economy.
What are the limits of city power, in the age of smart cities and sharing economies? What are the emerging processes of regulation? How are municipal powers being reconfigured, and by whom? Disrupting DC: The Rise of

- Reviews / platformization, democracy, Washington, DC, United States, smart city, transport, Uber, public transportation

The Making of City Digital Twins: The Case of Dassault Systèmes

Oskar Steiner — 2026-02-03T06:00:00Z

With their origins in manufacturing and heavy industry, “digital twins” are increasingly being applied to urban planning and governance. As Oskar Steiner demonstrates, while the private firms that develop these tools often market them as a way to “let the city speak,” in practice they mostly serve as a vehicle to amplify and legitimize those companies' own voices.
As cities rush to brand themselves as “smart,” city digital twins have emerged as the latest techno-utopian promise: a live,

- From the Field / technology, smart city, digital city, digital economy, platformization

The Promises and Realities of Data-Driven Community Development

Austin Harrison — 2022-02-22T06:00:00Z

Tennessee nonprofit Innovate Memphis has spent nearly a decade designing the Memphis Property Hub, a public data platform for community development corporations (CDCs). Austin Harrison asks if this is a replicable way to democratize neighborhood- and property-level data, so as to level the playing field between community organizers and well-resourced state and market actors, and bring community organizing back to the fore of urban CDCs' activities.
Over the past decade, city governments and

- From the Field / data, open data, smart city, community-based organizations, community organizing, community development, housing, evictions, United States, Tennessee, Memphis

Centering Equity in the Smart-Cities Project Dialogue

Margaret Cowell — 2020-10-13T05:00:00Z

In Uneven Innovation, Jennifer Clark argues that the technological innovations behind “smart cities” can cultivate and even exacerbate uneven development, and must be assessed in the context of equity.
Have you ever wondered about the long-term effects of the small-scale technological innovations that have sprouted up in cities across the world? Dockless bikes, ICT-integrated parking systems, and even Wi‑Fi-enabled public trash cans are just three of the many examples that Jennifer Clark uses

- Reviews / smart city, information technology, technology, inequalities, entrepreneurialism

Technocratic Values and Uneven Development in the “Smart City”

Taylor Shelton & Jennifer Clark — 2016-05-10T05:00:00Z

In the US, the idea of “smart cities” is coming to dominate federal government involvement in, and funding for, urban places. But the smart cities approach, which focuses on using digital applications to promote efficiency, competitiveness, and citizen participation in governance, raises questions about technocentrism in the reproduction of inequality and socio-spatial fragmentation.
The idea of “smart cities” is becoming more important to the way future cities are planned, developed and

- Debates / United States, smart city, urban inequality, technocracy, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology