Visibilities and Invisibilities: Theoretical Perspectives on Smart Cities

1. Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the visible and invisible aspects and elements of contemporary urban environments (Dourish and Bell, 2007; Caprotti, 2017; Tursić, 2017; Orasch, 2019) and regions through a review of the research and practice literature on smart cities. To this end, this chapter seeks to identify and describe what contributes to the visible and invisible dimensions of urban spaces and regions generally and more particularly in smart cities and why such dimensions matter. Focus is placed on the physical and digital in relation to the visible and invisible, giving rise to the need for extending and evolving spaces for theory (Brenner and Schmid, 2015; Brenner, 2019) and methodological approaches for understanding and interacting in and with emergent smart city environments that are increasingly being infused with aware technologies. As such, this chapter seeks to shed light on the importance of the relationship between the visible and invisible in urban environments and regions, informed by the experiences and assessments of people from diverse sectors. Using an exploratory case study approach combined with an explanatory correlational design, the relationship between the visible and invisible is explored with people in multiple small to medium to large-sized cities in a range of countries. This chapter is significant in that it explores the nature of the relationship between the visible and the invisible in smart urban environments and regions from the perspectives of people in their day-to-day environments. Key contributions of this work include a) providing a review of the research and practice literature for urban visibilities and invisibilities; b) exploring theory associated with the visible and invisible in smart cities; and c) formulating and operationalizing of a conceptual framework for visibilities and invisibilities in support of emerging smart city research and opportunities.

Objective: The main objective of this chapter is to explore and advance understandings of what contributes to the visible and invisible in smart cities. As such, the key research question posed is – What is the nature of the relationship between visibilities and invisibilities in smart cities and why does this relationship matter?

2. Background And Overview

The notion of the visible and invisible in relation to cities is not new, discussed as it is by Doležel (1979) however, in this work, the emerging context of smart cities provides the novelty. More generally, Malm (2016) speaks of the notion of “visibility impairment” where haze “obscures urban areas.” In the United Kingdom, awareness of smart cities is said to remain low with Government Europa (2019) reporting that “68% of UK respondents do not know what a smart city is” or how the smart city would “benefit urban residents.” Ransom (2019) argues that “you may already be living in a smart city” adding “here’s what to look out for” – highlighting elements such as, more voices, to “promote cooperation between citizens and local institutions”; more complexity, requiring “interdisciplinary work”; and more places for interaction “blurring the edges between the university and the city.” Orasch (2019) points to “the inability to visualize” smart cities “and understand the ubiquity of their reach” claiming that “the smart city exists all around us, in various forms and in various spaces.” Orasch (2019) goes on to note that many smart city technologies are “invisible to the public eye”, contributing to making the visibility of smart urban spaces and regions invisible. Orasch (2019) argues for a “need for public awareness” in the form of education about “what smart city technologies are and where they exist within city space.” As such, this chapter elaborates on and extends earlier understandings of urban environments and regions in smart cities in terms of the visible and the invisible (McKenna, 2019). Through a review of the research literature, a context is provided for visibilities and invisibilities along with emerging definitions for key terms used in this chapter. In summary, this chapter explores visibilities and invisibilities through smart city awareness identified in the practice and research literature and explored through ongoing urban research described in this work. This chapter is also significant in that it advances the need for greater awareness of smart cities in terms of the people component (Morello and Piga, 2016) and the experiences of people (Demers and Potvin, 2016) in relation to interactions with aware technologies and with each other.