What is an "ethical" smart city?

Brendan Bermingham

The idea of a “Smart City” often brings images of efficient public transportation, seamless digital services, and data driven solutions to modern challenges. While new and interesting technologies are important, Smart Cities will also require fairness and equity in governance to build trust in the community. To ensure that Smart City development truly benefits the residents, planners and policymakers must confront three critical issues: equity, privacy, and inclusive decision making.

Smart technologies promise increased mobility, more efficient energy use, and improved quality of life. The benefits of these new technologies are often not distributed evenly and if only affluent communities have access to smart infrastructure, planners risk reinforcing existing inequalities. When surveyed, U.S. planners cite the “digital divide” as a barrier to equitable smart city implementation (Meenar & Afzalan, 2023). To avoid this exclusion, cities must design programs that intentionally prioritize underserved communities like subsidized smart infrastructure projects, digital literacy education programs, and ensuring that public services remain accessible for those without reliable internet access.

Smart Cities rely heavily on data from sensors, apps, and other digital platforms to function. While these tools have the potential to help reduce traffic or improve energy efficiency, they also raise questions about surveillance and data security. The project known as “Sidewalk Labs” in Toronto highlights the concerns of corporate control over personal data (Barth, 2019).

This project failed because the Google-owned company “Sidewalk Labs” was given preferential treatment and was not transparent with the public about the true scale of their project, ultimately breaking the public trust which caused it to be shut down. Planners must advocate for transparent data policies that limit how governments and private firms can use information. Clear regulations, open data sourcing, and citizen participation on oversight boards can help ensure that innovation doesn’t come at the expense of privacy.

The most important lesson planners can learn from examples of Smart City development is that cities must grow with the community rather than being built for them. Cities like Barcelona and Amsterdam are setting good examples of how residents should be involved in the planning process, making spots for them on oversight boards and planning committees (Barth, 2019). This sentiment is also felt among planners and professional planners often feel that they play the role of mediators between the public, corporations, and the government (Meenar & Afzalan, 2023). Building on the role of mediator will require us to facilitate meaningful community engagement. Public workshops, participatory planning, and open digital platforms are some ways that cities can equip residents with the ability to guide development.

Ethical Smart Cities are those where new technologies are used to reduce inequality rather than deepen it, where personal data is protected rather than exploited, and where decisions reflect the voices of all residents instead of tech companies and the political elites. As planners, we must advocate for policies that embed equity, privacy, and participation into every smart initiative.

Brendan Bermingham is a graduate student of Urban and Regional Planning, Rowan University.

References:

Barth, B. (2019, March). Smart Cities or Surveillance Cities? American Planning Association.

Meenar, M., & Afzalan, N. (2023). Urban planners’ roles, perceptions, needs, and concerns in

smart city planning: A survey of U.S. planners. International Planning Studies, 28(1),

21–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563475.2022.2136628