Smart cities, between global circulation and local cultures

Invited by the World Urban Forum held this year in Abu Dhabi from 9 to 13 February 2020, La Fabrique de la Cité organizes a round table bringing together five renowned international speakers to discuss the political and cultural issues at stake in the development of smart cities. Entitled The smart city, between global circulation and local cultures, the event was the occasion for a vast world tour from India to Togo, via the Mediterranean, Colombia, Western Europe and Canada, where the Toronto project of Sidewalk Labs is coming up against real political and cultural considerations… and cultural ones.

How does culture influence approaches to digital technologies and their urban implementation? How is each smart city unique and responds to radically different planning cultures? Why can the same smart city be industrially duplicated ad infinitum regardless of the territories and cities concerned by its implementation? In a word, why is the smart city first of all a political and cultural product before being a technological object?

La Fabrique de la Cité invited, on 10 February, Sénamé Koffi AGBODJINOU, architect (HubCité), Pushpa ARABINDOO, lecturer and researcher (University College London), Hugues PARANT, Director General (Etablissement Public d’Aménagement Euroméditerranée) and Cécile MAISONNEUVE, President (La Fabrique de la Cité) for a round-table discussion moderated by Raphaël Languillon-Aussel, senior research officer at La Fabrique de la Cité.